According to many linguists, most of the 6,000 languages currently spoken on this earth will be extinct by 2100, and many of those endangered are in the United States.

Rose Bean Simpson, 18, of Fairview, N.M.; Nina Junaluska, 18, of Cherokee, N.C.; and Autumn Gomez, 14, of Santa Fe, N.M., speak languages that are in danger of dying out before the century is over. Each of them is American Indian and, in addition to English, speaks her tribe's native language. Rose speaks Tewa, Autumn speaks Comanche, and Nina speaks Cherokee.

It is estimated that about 300 tribal languages were spoken in the United States when Columbus arrived. Roughly half of those are extinct.

The girls had to learn their respective tribal languages from their grandparents' generation. This is because, as Rose explains, their parents' generation never was taught how to speak the native language. "My grandmother never taught my mother how to speak the native language, and that's pretty much how it is among most of my mother's generation, because my grandmother's generation was so put down for speaking their language. They used to wash their mouths out with soap at the Indian schools if they spoke their language. So they never taught their children because they thought it was a bad thing to speak your language," she says.

Nina believes that her parents' generation wasn't taught their native languages, not because the elders thought it was a bad idea, but because they didn't want their children to be discriminated against. "I think the reason they didn't speak it was because a lot of them went to boarding schools, and they couldn't speak their languages. They were punished for it, and they had to speak English. So I think most of the reason is the elders didn't want their children to be punished in that way. So we didn't get to learn," she says.

Because there was a generation that was not taught the native languages, many of those languages are now on the brink of extinction. Most of the tribes are doing all they can to preserve their language. Autumn's tribal elders are putting the Comanche language on paper so that it does not die when they do. As Autumn explains, "They're putting it into writing and hoping that will make it better and we can save it before all our elders go and we won't know it anymore."

Autumn, her younger brother and her mother attend Comanche classes taught by her grandmother. The Cherokee people also are turning to the youngest generation in hopes of producing a generation that speaks Cherokee as their first language. While they focus on all youths, they especially target the youngest ones. "Like in day-care centers, they start off with the babies and the toddlers, and they are speaking only Cherokee to them. They have a program set up just for them; no English is spoken, and they're teaching them," Nina says.

She sees this as the best way to preserve her language. "You have to start when they're little for them to know it fluently. It's really hard to teach somebody after they're grown to speak. So I would try to teach the children in day care on into school," she says.

Rose's tribe also is starting to offer Tewa classes to its youths, often taught by senior citizens. The Indigenous Language Institute in Santa Fe, which assists many tribes in preserving tribal languages, is helping Rose's tribe. "I think that the Indigenous Language Institute, its first big thing is to attack the issue and then promote the learning of the language and the preservation of the language in many different communities, which is very necessary," Rose says.

The three teens also plan to do their part in preserving their language by teaching their children to speak it, if they have children. Autumn is hopeful but realistic. "I don't know if the pronunciations and things like that will survive, but hopefully things like songs and hymns will," she says.

Only a few tribes speak Tewa now, Rose says, and she thinks it's up to her generation to restore it. "Every generation has to preserve their language. You can't just say, 'It's not my fault -- let the kids do it,' " she says.

Nina says her native language is being preserved very well. "Because of all the immersion camps they have, I don't think it will ever die." In fact, she believes that before too long, Cherokee might be widely spoken again. "They're keeping it alive now, and later on, like on down the line -- it's not gonna be tomorrow or anytime soon -- but later on I think it will be alive."

Assistant editor: Lauren Rochester, 16. Reporter: Abby Rivin, 12.