Now the Senate and the House have acted on the “Native American $1 Coin Act,” which would add scenes from our American Indian past to our current dollar coinage, and a linguistic battle has emerged that could well prevent the measure from becoming law.

At stake is the pronunciation and spelling of the name of Lewis and Clark’s great heroine, Sacagawea (Senate bill) or Sakakawea (House version).

Introduced May 17 by Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mo., H.R. 2358 moved to rapid House passage June 12, and was received in the Senate the following day. S. 585 was introduced Feb. 14 of this year by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., with a goal of replacing “the designs on the obverse the so-called ‘Sacagawea design’” with new ones honoring all Native Americans.

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