Nearly 400 years ago, the Mashpee Wampanoag Native American tribe made history. They shared the first Thanksgiving meal with the pilgrims. Did you know their tribe still exists? Right now, they are fighting to keep their language alive in Mashpee, Massachusetts.

No one spoke the Mashpee language for a long time. But kids are starting to study it again. They learn that many English words actually come from their people’s language, Wopanaotooaok. Here are a few: pumpkin comes from their word pohpukun. Moccasin comes from mahkus. Skunk comes from sukok. Even the name for Massachusetts comes from a Mashpee Wampanoag word: masachoosut.

A woman named Jessie Baird wanted to rescue the forgotten language. She wrote a dictionary of its words. Now 19 children from the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe study at a school called “Children’s House.” Their teachers speak to them only in Wopanaotooaok!

(AP Photo: Children in a pre-kindergarten and kindergarten Wampanoag language class work on their lessons.)