The nearly lost language that’s found a global stage at this year’s World Cup

Zalmai ‘Zeke’ Zahir stood at the front of the classroom, fingers flicking—one, two, sometimes four at a time—as he did math in the air while speaking txʷləšucid. Every so often, a lightbulb went off on a student’s face.

As a non-Native volunteer in this txʷləšucid classroom, I understood little, but my heart fluttered at witnessing a once nearly-vanished language moving so freely—and knowing the human persistence and care required to resuscitate it. And this was just one classroom at the Northwest Indigenous Language Institute’s annual Summer Institute in Eugene, Oregon, running continuously since 1998 for Native language educators of Indigenous languages.

That was 2016. Flash forward to 2026 when the Puyallup Tribe’s historic collaboration with FIFA—the first formal partnership between an Indigenous nation and World Cup host city—means txʷləšucid is having a global moment. The Puyallup Tribe and 12 other tribes around the Puget Sound region in Washington State, USA speak txʷləšucid, a language of the First People of Western Washington, spoken between the shores of the Central Salish Sea and the Cascade Mountains, from the Skagit River North to Mud Bay in the South.

It means the language will be seen and heard alongside major cultural celebrations throughout the tournament. And it’s fitting: The Puyallup Tribe, whose txʷləšucid name (spuyaləpabš) means “generous and welcoming behavior to all people” has welcomed others since time immemorial.

While the FIFA-Puyallup collaboration has made this partnership possible, it’s down to decades of tough community-led revitalization work. Efforts to revive the language have taken shape since the 1970s, closer to the Coastal Salish Traditional homelands, in homes, online spaces, schools, Tribal canoe journeys, and other outdoor learning forums or curriculums.

Puyallup Tribe’s language program director Amber Hayward reflects on elders like Vi taqʷšəblu Hilbert (1918-2008) an Upper Skagit Tribal member and key figure in early txʷləšucid revitalization efforts. Beginning her language work in the late 1960s, Hilbert shared txʷləšucid however she could, sometimes risking disapproval of other tribal members—such concerns stemmed from generations of cultural knowledge being lost or taken, appropriated, and misused by colonizers. As one of the few things that remained under Tribal control in Hilbert’s lifetime, language was especially vulnerable.

Hilbert taught Natives and non-Native students, produced many books for sale on LushootseedResearch.org, made audio and video recordings of speakers, and documented Traditional teachings and place names. Her life’s work was to revitalize the language. She granted interviews and even commissioned a Seattle Symphony based on two Traditional Coast Salish songs. Hilbert didn’t have the luxury of worrying about others’ opinions; she just had to get the language out there. A well-respected figure considered pivotal in revitalization efforts, she was named a Washington State Living Treasure in 1989.

“[Our] job is not to teach the world about txʷləšucid: It is to introduce the world to the Puyallup Tribe of Indians so that the Puyallup Tribe of Indians can share their culture and language with the world.”

- Leo Flor, chief legacy officer, Seattle FWC26

Another elder and friend of Puyallup linguist Zahir, Ernest šidut Barr (Snoqualmie Tribe), allowed Zahir to record his Traditional narratives and stories in txʷləšucid, Yet after one recording session, Barr shared he “didn’t know why Zahir was even recording him because no-one in future generations would understand them anyway.”

He did the recordings anyway. From grammar to vocabulary and cultural knowledge, Elder recordings have contributed to txʷləšucid knowledge and learning materials used today as the language has become increasingly normalized. “txʷləšucid gets to be in front of the world now [at the World Cup],” says Hayward, “because of somebody like him and somebody like Vi. It’s just a huge honor to our ancestors.”

Today, txʷləšucid appears in homes, schools, a snippet in Grey’s Anatomy, public art, street signage, supermarkets, and other everyday spaces. Recent surveys by txʷləšucid instructor Zahir indicate the language has grown from two to more than 200 speakers. Asked what txʷləšucid means to her, Hayward says: “It is the oldest piece and connector to our ancestors. It’s the only thing that gives us insight into their world and their thoughts.”

Before colonization, outsider settlement, and the English language dominated the region, processes that began with increased European contact in the late 1700s and accelerated during the mid-1800s, the Pacific Northwest was home to a remarkable diversity of Indigenous languages—many spoken multilingually across neighboring communities connected by trade, kinship, and water.

Disease, forced assimilation, and boarding school policies devastated these languages, with Indigenous children, often forcibly removed from their families to attend boarding schools, punished for speaking their languages. The result: Communities with only a handful of speakers by the late 20th century. What few remained were often traumatized out of using their language—language transmission ‘skipped’ a generation.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup marks a major milestone within broader regional Indigenous language revitalization efforts in the Pacific Northwest USA and British Columbia, Canada, a hotspot for language loss. Hotspots, according to the Living Tongues Institute, are defined as “concentrated regions of the world having the highest level of linguistic diversity, the highest levels of endangerment, and the least-studied languages.”

But there’s a precedent for Indigenous language visibility at global sporting events: The 2010 Olympics in Vancouver expanded First Nations dual-language signage across British Columbia, while the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand prominently incorporated First Nations and te reo Māori languages, helping to normalize correct pronunciation. It’s a similar scenario here: The Puyallup partnership puts Indigenous leadership at the center instead of treating Native culture like decorative branding.

“What would it mean to get off the plane in Seattle and one of the first things you see is a txʷləšucid word?” asks Leo Flor, chief legacy officer for Seattle’s FIFA World Cup 2026 committee, Seattle FWC26. He sees the Puyallup-FIFA collaboration as a chance to reshape visitors’ associations in the region, musing the possibility of txʷləšucid words gaining global familiarity similar to Hawaiʻi’s ‘aloha’. To Flor, Seattle FWC26 is a megaphone. “[Our] job is not to teach the world about txʷləšucid: It is to introduce the world to the Puyallup Tribe of Indians so that the Puyallup Tribe of Indians can share their culture and language with the world.”

Where will World Cup attendees and the rest of the world see txʷləšucid appear? “You get off the elevator and it’s [txʷləšucid’s] right there,” Puyallup Tribe World Cup project director Amy MacFarland tells me.

“People can see the way that we express ‘welcome’ as ‘our hands are raised to you all’ (ʔəsbutbutlačibitubuɫəd),” she adds. “You can also hear it if you’re not physically at the event, on collaborative social media posts between the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, their Twulshootseed Language Program, and fwc26Seattle, like this one featuring a departure greeting: Watch over yourself well (haʔɫ kʷ[i] adsəslabcəbut).”

The language will also appear in the free SEA&WIN app (the official mobile game of the Seattle FIFA World Cup 26™) for visitors to explore the Seattle and Tacoma areas in a gamified way, FIFA advertising, local news at FOX 13, at events, fan zones, and during Puyallup Tribe cultural events like the World Cup Coastal protocol, Powwow, and Stickgame tournament.

Revitalization work is about healing, MacFarland tells me. “It’s about firmly placing our feet in the ground so that our children can know where they come from.”

One collaboration between Visit Tacoma–Pierce County and the Puyallup Tribe will also bring txʷləšucid into Tacoma’s ‘Art of the Game’ campaign through handmade glass pieces featuring the word caləɫali (“place of lake”), a Lushootseed place name for Tacoma.

Tacoma ‘s renowned glass art tradition makes it a fitting medium for the hunt. Participants follow location-based video clues on Facebook and Instagram to find hidden glass medallions and hand-blown glass floats—both to keep. “We’re excited to introduce the first Visit Tacoma–Pierce County program to include txʷləšucid,” said Matt Wakefield at Visit Tacoma–Pierce County. Organizers hope the project deepens visitors’ understanding of the cultures that continue to thrive.

txʷləšucid at one of the world’s largest sporting events represents more than visibility. It’s intergenerational continuity and language returning to lands where it has co-evolved for millennia—people and land hearing the sound of their own voice again over the din of colonization.

Revitalization work is about healing, MacFarland tells me. “It’s about firmly placing our feet in the ground so that our children can know where they come from. Normalizing it [txʷləšucid] it is really important to me, and making it a healthy space for people to want to speak. There’s a lot of negative reasons [in history] for us not to speak, and so we had to try to undo that.”

With continued language growth will come new responsibilities. “If we’re putting txʷləšucid out there, we need to be ready for those questions that non-Natives will have,” she adds. “Ask for the Native name of Mt. Rainier and you’ll quickly learn there isn’t just one, but at least 20 known names.” As for your first language lesson, a good starter is Yəhaw̓, a word appearing in the SEA&WIN app that organizers hope will echo through stadiums too. Rooted in a Lushootseed Traditional Narrative, it can mean ‘Let’s go’, but also to proceed, exert strength, or figuratively ‘lifting up the sky’.

Whether in a World Cup stadium or a txʷləšucid classroom, it sums everything up: Yəhaw̓!

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