 In July 2013, the Penobscot Nation, the [[University of Maine]] and the [[American Philosophical Society]] received a grant from the [[National Endowment for the Humanities]] to expand and publish the first Penobscot Dictionary.Over time, Abenaki became regarded as an unimportant language, and with the fading of generations, the number of speakers crashed.Abenaki had as few as twelve native speakers in 2015, but with recent focus and extra efforts in the Abenaki community, this number seems to be growing.