Yellowknife (Mar 05/03) - While presenting a report on proposed changes to the Official Languages Act on Monday, MLAs Steven Nitah and David Krutko said the government has failed native languages in recent years.

The special committee created to change to the act over the last two years found that government agencies were not following the languages policy and guidelines consistently, and money was wasted.

The proposed act will designate a minister responsible for the Official Languages Act, and put an aborginal languages board in place to advise the minister.

"We have a real challenge on our hands," said Krutko, who laments the near-extinction of many native languages.

"We are in a drastic state of affairs in the NWT," he added.

The NWT has 11 official languages. Currently Dogrib and Slavey are the strongest still being used in the home and reported as a mother tongue.

The re-vamped language act is meant to preserve languages by making them more widely taught in schools, and supported in general by the government.