Talking Alaska

Traditional Knowledge content licenses

2012-01-26T07:05:00.000-09:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, last week I participated in a workshop entitled After the Return: Digital Repatriation and the Circulation of Indigenous Knowledge. Among the many interesting ideas to emerge from the workshop is a discussion of copyright and traditional knowledge. It is well known that Western legal notions of intellectual property and copyright are not well suited to traditional knowledge, which might be shared by entire communities rather than "owned" by a particular individual. Up till now the best best attempt to bridge this gap that I've encountered is the Creative Commons. But while Creative Commons may be a better solution that copyright, it often seems to broad for Native language documentation.

The Mukurtu project has been developing Traditional Knowledge licenses which "create conditions for access and use of works that are in keeping with community practice." The licenses are described on their website. They're still in draft form, and I'm sure the developers would welcome feedback.

"Digital is the new analog"

2012-01-25T12:00:00.001-09:00

At the recent Digital Repatriation workshop Haidy Geismar, an anthropologist at NYU, remarked that "digital is the new analog." Though at first blush this may seem an empty statement, it actually forces us to think about a number of important issues. If digital is the new analog then it is no longer something new, something special in different. Rather, digital is now the norm, no longer to be thought of in opposition to the old analog.

We are moving into an era will where "digital" will cease to be a marked term. No longer will we need to prefix digital to an object or activity, for digital will be the accepted obvious medium. Just as years ago we never talked about making analog recordings, in years to come we won't need to talk about digital recordings. They will simply be recordings. Already we see signs of this happening. My kids talk about the "books" on their iPads or Kindles. They don't refer to these as "digital books" or "eBooks"; they are simply "books".

In the world of language documentation and archiving we continued to be concerned with issues of the digital. We live in a transitional time, moving from analog to digital. But these transitional days are numbered. Soon we will cease to think about analog and in turn cease to need to qualify our activities with the word digital. Digital is indeed becoming the new analog.

Digital Repatriation

2012-01-24T03:01:00.001-09:00

Last week I participated in a workshop entitled After the Return: Digital Repatriation and the Circulation of Knowledge. The workshop brought together language activists, museum professionals, anthropologists, legal scholars, and linguists to look at issues relating to repatriation in digital form. With more and more museums having an increased digital presence, the question of physical location of an object is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Rather, objects can be preserved in a secure repository while still accessed remotely. Emerging technologies such as 3D-printing even make it possible to create exact physical replicas of objects after they have been digitally scanned.

In the language realm repatriation is even easier because the products of language are already virtual, be they recordings or written stories. For the past several years the Alaska Native Language Archive has been working to repatriate digital language materials in a variety of ways, ranging from supplying digital copies of materials on a hard drive to create enhanced interfaces such as qenaga.org. Already these materials are being repurposed and reimagined in many different useful and interesting ways. Examples include Dena'ina Lifeways, the Alutiiq Language site at the Alutiiq Museum, the Eyak Language Project, and the Ahtna language collection at C'ek'aedi Hwnax.

Unfortunately it's still much easier to take a language away than it is to give it back. We live with the legacy of deliberate policies of language removal endorsed by Sheldon Jackson and other figures of the American colonial period in Alaska. Consider the following excerpt from an 1887 letter to newly hired teachers from Sheldon Jackson, General Education Agent for Alaska:

"It is the purpose of the government in establishing schools in Alaska to train up English speaking American citizens. You will therefore teach in English and give special prominence to instruction in the English language… " 

Not much room there for Native languages. Of course Jackson was merely following a then (still?) widely-held belief in the superiority of English and the futility of speaking more than one language. As sixth US President John Quincy Adams wrote in 1811:

"The whole continent of North America appears to be destined by Divine Providence to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs."

Simply returning language documentation materials will not by itself revitalize Alaska Native Languages. But it is encouraging to see the many ways that this material is being circulated and used in language revitalization contexts.

Alaska Native Language Preservation Council legislation

2012-01-22T15:27:00.000-09:00

This coming Tuesday, January 24 the Alaska State Senate will hear testimony on SB 130, "An Act establishing in the Office of the Governor an advisory council for the preservation, restoration, and revitalization of Alaska Native languages." The bill would establish the Alaska Native Language Preservation Council. The Council would advise the governor on "programs, policies, and projects to provide for the cost-effective preservation, restoration, and revitalization of Alaska Native languages in the state."

If passed, this could be the most significant piece of legislation affecting Alaska Native languages since the passage of the 1972 laws authorizing mandatory bilingual education in state-operated schools where children speak a Native languages. That 1972 legislation also established the Alaska Native Language Center to provide for documentation of Native languages and development of curriculum resources, but since ANLC was located within the university system, that act did not give Native languages a clear voice in state government. The proposed SB130 gives clear representation for Native languages at the state level, bringing together regional language experts as well as specialists in Native languages and language education.

Track the status of SB 130 and read the entire text of the proposed legislation at:

http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/get_bill.asp?session=27&bill=SB130&submit=Display+Bill

High-school credit for Native languages in Colorado

2012-01-20T11:24:00.000-09:00

News has been filtering in over the past week or so about a proposed law in Colorado which would give high-school credit for Native languages. This in itself isn't so impressive -- after all, many Alaskan students already study Koyukon, Yup'ik, Inupiaq, etc. What's impressive is that the bill would also permit Native language teachers to teach these classes without full certification (take that, NCLB!).

Read more in Indian Country Today.

Anchorage Parks with Native Names

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-09:00

A few months ago Aaron Leggett sent me a list of Dena'ina place names which are in wider use in the Anchorage area. One particularly interesting feature of this list is the number of parks which have Native names. The Anchorage Parks Foundation lists some 99 parks, x of which are clearly of Dena'ina origin:

Nulbay Park (from nulbay 'seagull')
Duldida Park (from deldida 'red squirrel')
Kanchee Park (from qanchee 'porcupine')
Tikishla Park (from ghedishla 'black bear')
Didlika Park (from
Kedaya Park (from gedeyaq 'black-legged kitwake')

The meaning of the of the name nulbay is even explained on the park web site (though Dena'ina is not identified as the source language), and the literal translations are found on the park signage, as shown in the photos belows (photos courtesy Aaron Leggett).

A few other Anchorage parks have Native names from languages other than Dena'ina. These include Nunaka Park (from Inupiaq) and Taku Lake Park (from Tlingit, via English).

Wampanoag linguist Jessie Little Doe Baird stars in new film

2012-01-11T12:49:00.000-09:00

Jessie Little Doe Baird with daughter Mae

Last week at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America I had the pleasure of attending a screening of the film We Still Live Here - Âs Nutayuneân. If you haven't yet had a chance to see it, I highly recommend it. The film tells the inspirational story of efforts to revive the Wampanoag language of Massachusetts, led by Wampanoag linguist Jessie Little Doe Baird. Against what would seem to be insurmountable odds Little Doe succeeds in rediscovering a long-sleeping language. She tells of her intrigue at the number of Native-sounding placenames in the region, such as Sippewissett. She then takes her interest further, seeking the skills of linguistics in order to unlock the the written record.

Some might be surprised to learn that Wampanoag has the largest corpus of written documents of any North American language. This includes not only the first bible published in the Western Hemisphere (John Eliot, ca. 1680), but also land records and other legacies of colonial attempts to "legally" impoverish Native peoples.

As Wampanoag revitalization continues to flourish a K-3 immersion school is planned for 2015. And Little Doe's daughter Mae is already the first new Native speaker of the language. It is a story of inspiration. If Wampanoag can be revitalized with no help from Native speakers, just think what can be achieved here in Alaska. I highly recommend this film.

Find out more at the website: http://www.itvs.org/films/we-still-live-here

Census release report on Native languages

2011-12-13T18:55:00.000-09:00

The US Census Bureau recently release a new report known as Native American Languages Spoken in the Home in the U.S. 2006-10. The report surveys 381 languages, including 169 Native languages. Among these 3 Alaskan languages are noted, with speaker numbers as follows:

Language	Speakers
"Yupik"	18,950
"Inupik"	7,203
"Eskimo"	2,076

Yupik ranks as the second highest number of speakers in the U.S. following Navajo (169,471 speakers).

The report notes a marked age gradation, with older speakers much more likely to speak a Native American language in the home (22% for those over 65 years old compared to 11% for those ages 5-17).

Another particularly interesting part of the report is the distribution of speakers across the country. As the map below clearly shows, Alaska and the desert Southwest are the centers of Native American language speaker populations.

Download the complete 5-page report as a pdf file:

http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acsbr10-10.pdf

Deanna Kingston

2011-12-07T06:51:00.000-09:00

Larry Kaplan provided the following note regarding the passing of Alaskan Anthropologist Deanna Kingston.

"On December 2nd we lost our beloved colleague Dr. Deanna Kingston, who was Associate Professor of Anthropology at Oregon State University. Deanna was well-known in Alaska for several reasons. She earned her PhD in Anthropology at UAF, with a dissertation on the King Island Wolf Dance. As a member of the King Island Inupiaq community – her mother is from King Island – Deanna worked closely with that group, notably as head of a NSF grant to document King Island culture and language, including plants, birds, and place names. She studied Inupiaq when she was a student at UAF and got to know many people here, touching them with her enthusiasm for Alaska Native cultures and especially her own King Island people. Deanna will be missed by many colleagues and friends, in addition to her loving family who cared for her with great devotion throughout her illness. I haven’t heard that any service is planned yet, but memorial funds are being set up to help Deanna’s son and family, and I will send that information to any who request it once I have it."
--Larry Kaplan

Here are some related links:

Obama signs executive order supporting Native American Languages

2011-12-05T11:00:00.001-09:00

Last Friday President Obama signed an executive order entitled Improving American Indian and Alaska Native Educational Opportunities and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities. The signing took place as part of the third White House Tribal Nations Conference and comes after a long campaign by tribal organizations and other advocacy groups, including the Linguistic Society of American Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation. The Order makes several explicit references to Native languages. I have highlighted some of these references below.

"The Initiative shall help expand educational opportunities and improve educational outcomes for all American Indian / Alaska Native students, including opportunities to learn their Native languages, cultures, and histories."
"the Initiative shall promote, encourage, and undertake efforts, consistent with applicable law, to ... increasing the number and percentage of AI/AN children who enter kindergarten ready for success through improved access to high quality early learning programs and services, including Native language immersion programs..."
"Each [federal] agency plan shall include: ... the preservation and revitalization of tribal languages and cultural traditions."
"...encourage the private sector to ... providing funds to support the preservation and revitalization of Native languages and cultures..."

The signing of this Executive Order has been well received with many positive reactions over the weekend. For example, Alaska Senator Mark Begich noted that the Order will have repercussions for new legislation:

respect and embrace Alaska Native cultures and languages

For the complete text of the Executive Order see the press release.

Executive order

2011-11-30T07:13:00.002-09:00

The LSA Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation
(CELP) is initiating a letter-writing campaign to President Obama urging
him to sign an executive order on Native American language
revitalization. Last April the LSA passed a resolution urging President
Obama to sign this executive order (http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-
native-american.cfm). If signed by President Obama, agencies of the
U.S. government would be directed to ensure that their policies,
procedures, and functions support community-based language
revitalization.

For more information, please visit the CELP website: www.lsacelp.org.

For instructions on how to become involved with the campaign, please
visit www.lsacelp.org/take-action/.

ISER celebrates 50 years

2011-11-23T14:17:00.001-09:00

Congratulations to the UAA Institute of Social and Economic Research on its 50th anniversary. I was happy to see this photo of ISER Director Heather Hudson taken in front of the new Indigenous Peoples and Languages of Alaska map. The photo appears in an article about ISER in the Alaska Journal of Commerce. The map was produced as part of a collaboration between ISER and the Alaska Native Language Center and is a fitting tribute to ISER's 50th. And the collaboration recalls the days when ISER was located adjacent to ANLC on the Fairbanks campus. Though now located on two different campuses, the two units continue to serve statewide needs.

Youtube Kat Dinjii Zhuh K'yaa

2011-11-17T17:44:00.002-09:00

I have been posting Gwich'in language videos on Youtube lately. I have posted before, but they were either raw video from various occasions, or some simple montages set to a song or two, but none in Gwich'in language. I belong to the Gwich'in language group on facebook, it is a mixed group of speakers and non-speakers, some who read and write Gwich'in, others who are non-speakers but learning, some who speak fluently but are used to the Takudh writing system from the the late 1800s instead of the modern writing system, and then of course there are many fluent Gwich'in speakers who haven't had a need to read or write in the language. Members often post in Gwich'in, and have exchanges (usually humorous) in Gwich'in language. One person posted in response to the Gwich'in language activity:

"this is for those who know the lang.? i would love to learn it but don't know the punctuation (spelling?) or how to sound it out. are the a b c's pronounched like our a b c's?".

The group members are from all parts of Alaska, and the Lower 48. Many expressed similar frustration with feeling somewhat left out, and not sure how to sound out the written language they were seeing. One member posted a pronunciation guide, but it refers to English sounds to explain Gwich'in phonology. This inevitably presents a problem since many Gwich'in language sounds do not have English equivalents, and end up being near approximations but not quite on the mark. So we decided to let them hear the sounds on facebook by posting Youtube video links. Working with UAF Gwich'in instructor Kathy Sikorski, who created a Gwich'in listening exercise series several years ago, I matched the sounds with images and posted these. So far there is a three part series focusing on Gwich'in phonology, with more to come. You can see these on Youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/alaska99801

I grew up in Arctic Village where our Episcopal services were conducted entirely in Takudh, as well as modern Gwich'in. Takudh is the first Gwich'in writing system, developed by Archdeacon Robert McDonald over a period of forty years in the late 1800s. McDonald was part of Ojibwe, Scottish, and African descent. McDonald made his life's work of the Gwich'in translation of the Bible, communion service, prayers, and hymns. He was also married to a Gwich'in woman, Julia Kuttug, and together they had nine children. The Gwich'in hymns I posted are from McDonald's translations, some may be familiar, and others have been forgotten by the mainstream while maintained among the Gwich'in people. The modern translation of Silent Night is by Ruth Carroll of Fort McPherson.

I hope you enjoy the videos posted so far, and we intend to create more. K'eegwaadhat nakhwaa'ooli', ts'a' gwiinzii adak'antii. ~Allan

The future of language documentation

2011-11-07T09:50:00.000-09:00

For the past decade or so the Volkswagen Foundation has been supporting language documentation work through the Documentation of Endangered Languages program (known by its German acronym DoBeS). This program has been at forefront of language documentation efforts internationally, being among the first such programs to think carefully about just what it means to document a language. Uniquely, rather than focus on creating traditional documentation products such as dictionaries and grammars, the DoBeS project has focused on creating a large body of transcribed video recordings documenting natural language use. Working in collaboration with Native speaker communities DoBeS teams have built up a vast archive of recordings for about 50 different endangered languages across the world. Unfortunately, Alaskan languages has not been the focus of any DoBeS project, in part because Alaskan languages are too endangered. That is, DoBeS prefers to focus on languages which, though endangered, still have a fairly active speech community with children still learning the languages. DoBeS projects have focused on related languages outside Alaska, including the Canadian Athabaskan language Beaver.

Like other programs supporting endangered language documentation, DoBeS itself is now endangered. It has just completed its final round of project funding. When the currently funded projects are completed, the programme will end. Yet it's not quite clear to me why this should be. At least half of the world's 6000 or so languages can be considered severely endangered. DoBeS has documented 50 of those, but there still remain many more in great need of documentation. Nevertheless, increasingly the focus seems to be on where to go next. The assumption seems to be, now that we've done language documentation, what do we do now? It's as if people have gotten tired of documentation. Maybe it's a case of funding fatigue. Or maybe it's just a case of needing to restate the problem, to make clear why it is that we still need to do language documentation.

Some attempts at this were made last week when a group of linguists gathered in Leipzig, Germany to examine the Potentials of Language Documentation. There we saw a sneak peek of the new DoBeS archive front end, which will be rolled out in the coming year. We also saw some exciting new ways to visualize and work with language data, many of which would be very useful here in Alaska. For example, a dynamic map of the distribution of equivalent word forms could help to us to visualize how individual words vary across languages. I talked about current non-linguistic uses of the Alaska Native Language Archive, making the point that archive resources are used for much more than just linguistic research (download presentation here). There will be a small publication summarizing the results of the meeting, and I will post a link as soon as that appears.

In the meantime there is still much to digest. Michael Krauss' address to the Linguistic Society of America in January 1991 shocked the world into action, and DoBeS was one of the first systematic attempts to heed that call to action. The effects of this program have been felt across the entire field of linguistics and will surely have a lasting impact. The success of this program and other funding schemes -- Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project; NSF Documenting Endangered Languages; etc. -- is beyond question. Unfortunately, in today's climate success may not be enough, and all these programs may be under threat. Linguists and language activists need to do a better job at getting the message out. It is not enough to "know" that languages are in a critical state. We need to effectively communicate the value of indigenous languages and the need for continued documentation and revitalization efforts.

A conversation with Michael Krauss

2011-11-04T06:06:00.000-08:00

I just ran across this interview with Michael Krauss done by travel writer Meg Pier. In this interview Dr. Krauss reveals some personal history which led him on a path toward documenting Alaska Native languages and toward the recognition of the global endangered languages problem. He notes that he went to Harvard to study Celtic languages but learned more from the Irish-speaking custodians than from the faculty. From there the story continues through Iceland and the Faroe Islands and on to Alaska.

Shortly after arriving in Alaska in 1960 Krauss pointed out that Alaska Native languages were severely endangered. This clarion call was crucial in raising awareness of Native languages and in motivating an official response, in the form of the Bilingual Education Act and the founding of the Alaska Native Language Center. But in the interview Krauss expresses his opinion that it is now politically incorrect to call attention to this "inconvenient reality." I wonder to what extent this is actually true? Granted, we don't have current information on the number of speakers of Alaska Native languages, but as I pointed out in a previous post it's relatively easy to see the decline over the years. And this decline, unchecked, will have serious consequences. Reflecting on the impending decrease in world linguistic diversity Krauss concludes: "I’m trying to be open-minded towards the future because I ain’t got no crystal ball. All I do know is that this will be a fundamental and irreversible change in our existence." This leaves us a lot to ponder.

ANA award language grants

2011-11-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

On Monday the Administration for Native Americans announced awards for Native American Language Preservation and Maintenance. Two of the 24 awards went to Alaskan languages: the Native Village of Afognak and the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe. A complete list of awards can be downloaded at the following link:

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ana/relevant/Documents/New_Awards_2011.pdf

Report from the Council of Geographic Names Authorities

2011-10-27T13:49:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder how place names become official? Today I had the privilege of attending the annual meeting of the Council of Geographic Names Authorities. These are the people who decide what names count as official and what names don't. Each state has a geographic names board, usually appointed by the governor, either directly or indirectly. Any proposal for a new name or a name change must first be approved by the relevant state board. If it gets state approval, then it gets forwarded to the federal level where it is considered by the USGS Board of Geographic Names.

This year's meeting is somewhat special in that it's being hosted by the Hawai'i board, and the focus is on indigenous place names. It's been interesting to hear the reports from the various state boards and to hear the challenges faced by particular name proposals. What most surprises me is the undercurrent of opposition to proposals for indigenous names. I'm still trying to understand just where this opposition comes from, but so far I can recognize several different threads.

One thread is resistance to change. It can be very difficult to change names once they have been approved. Some states have legislated name changes in certain instances, such as Oregon's decision to purge all of the "squaw" names. But still, finding alternate names can be difficult. This is probably just human nature; we tend to like things to stay the same-- and this includes names.

Another problem has to do with the nature of the naming practice itself. In the Euro-American tradition an important aspect of naming is to commemorate or honor a person. Indeed, today the Alaska board reported that about 95% of name proposals are for commemorative names. Native names--at least as far as I can tell in Alaska--do not tend to be commemorative. Rather, they tend to be descriptive, tend to focus on peoples' relationships to the land. So sometimes the argument is less about what to call a certain place but rather more about the nature of the naming practice itself.

A third thread that I notice is an objection to so-called "diacritic" marks and writing symbols which do not occur in the English alphabet. To my mind this seems the most insidious objection of all. At one point in time it might have been possible to argue that there were technological hurdles to incorporating non-English writing systems. I'm not saying I agree with such arguments -- after all, how can we say that we can put people on the moon and design iPhones but we can't design a database which handles special characters? Still, I do acknowledge that such arguments were once possible. But today with the emergence of the Unicode standard for fonts this problem largely disappears. The technological hurdle to "foreign" characters disappears.

Unfortunately, the emotional hurdle remains. There are often objections to "unpronounceable" characters, such as the barred-l and the apostrophe in łiq'a (Dena'ina Athabascan for 'fish'). It is natural to fear the unfamiliar, to shy away from that which we don't understand. But using unfamiliarity as an excuse for avoidance and exclusion can too easily become a justification for racism. Colonial oppressors have always cloaked their policies of domination in a kind of misguided logic. Similarly we can create a justification for avoiding indigenous place names based on their unfamiliar and unpronounceable spellings. But such reasoning is ultimately flawed, the logic of the oppressor.

Alaska Native languages have made enormous progress over the past few decades. We now see evidence of language is many public places across the state. And there is an openness toward greater recognition of Alaska Native place names. As I listen to the reports from the various state geographic names boards I am saddened by how many times I hear that proposals for indigenous names have been rejected. Still, I am hopeful that Alaska can take a different route which leads us to celebrate the original names of this great land.

Susan Paskvan's work features in First Alaskans Magazine

2011-10-24T10:47:00.000-08:00

The October/November issue of First Alaskans Magazine features a story about Susan Paskvan's work teaching Denaakk'e in the Yukon-Koyukuk School District. The article doesn't appear to be available online, so if you didn't get one at AFN you should definitely try to pick up a copy.

Sealaska Heritage Institute receives grant for preserving language materials

2011-10-19T23:13:00.000-08:00

As I just posted on the ANLA Blog, the Sealaska Heritage Institute has received an IMLS grant to digitize and annotate Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian recordings. By working with Native speakers the project will not only preserve recordings but also work to identify the contents of the recordings. In many cases historic recordings are not well labeled, so it can be difficult to determine the contents of the recording from the written labels (if they exist). As part of this grant ANLA will assist with digitization, while SHI will assist with identifying contents of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian recordings at ANLA. In addition, ANLA will provide digital copies of its Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian collections to SHI.

There's a nice article about the project in the Alaska Dispatch.

Also see the SHI Special Collections Blog.

Alaska Native Place Names Legislation

2011-10-19T02:16:00.000-08:00

As the Alaska Federation of Natives convention gets started in Anchorage this week it's worth recalling previous efforts to recognize the importance and significance of Alaska Native languages. In spite of long-standing opposition to Native languages in the state, there is actual significant legislative support. For example, Jim Kari called my attention to this 1982 bill which instructs the State Geographic Board to adopt Native place names for otherwise unnamed features. In the nearly 30 years since this legislation passed, all too few Native names have been made official. Which just goes to show that there remains a large gap between legislating good ideas and actually putting them into practice.

SENATE BILL NO. 727

IN THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA

TWELFTH LEGISLATURE - SECOND SESSION

A BILL

For an Act entitled: "An Act relating to the duties of the State Geographic Board; and providing for an effective date."

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:

* Section 1. . AS 44.19 . is amended by adding .a new section to read:

Sec. 44.19. 059. ALAS.KA NATIVE PLACE. NAMES. In carrying out its duties to name geographic features · under AS 44.19.058'(2) the State Geographic Board shall develop a policy for naming geographic features in the state that have not previously been named by finding Alaska Native place names for the unnamed geographic features and by considering giving the Alaska Native place names to those features, using Native language writing systems accepted by the Alaska Native Language Center of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

Alutiiq Consortium hosts Immersion A-Z workshop

2011-10-10T11:34:00.000-08:00

Learner-Teachers of Alutiiq on Kodiak Island recently got some help with their efforts to teach and learn using immersion methods. With funding from the Administration for Native Americans, an Alutiiq Language consortium project hosted an Immersion A-Z training in Kodiak last week. Instructors Stan Rodriguez (Iipay Nation, California) and Andrea Ramon (Tohono O'odham, Arizona) led the training as representatives of the Consortium of Indigenous Language Organizations.

Participants lead a seal hunting immersion activity.

The Qik'rtarmiut Alutiiq Language Mentorship Project which hosted the training is led by Native Village of Afognak, with partners the Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository and Native Village of Port Lions. Over 25 Participants from around Kodiak Island attended the immersion training.

Participants teach sewing vocabulary to instructor Rodriguez during an immersion demonstration.

Berenstain Bears in Lakota

2011-10-09T19:39:00.001-08:00

As a language learner I've always been fascinated with the power of video. Whenever I travel outside North America and find myself near a television I try to tune a show and see what I can glean of the language. I've always found one of the most powerful formats to be cartoon. They are simple to follow, usually with simple plots, and the characters are very expressive, allowing the viewer to infer the meaning without necessarily understanding all the words. So I was thrilled to discover that the Lakota Language Consortium has produced several episodes of the Berenstain Bears in Lakota language.

The dubbing is very well done, with Lakota speaking actors expertly capturing the emotion and intonation of the parts, making the episodes easy and fun to listen to and watch. This would be a great project for an Alaskan language. By using existing film the costs and difficulty of production are greatly reduced. Only the audio needs to be recorded and edited. And as reported in Indian Country Today, the very process of doing the dubbing becomes a language learning opportunity in itself, as actors and linguists work to create and refine an appropriate script in Lakota.

You can view all 20 episodes online at lakotabears.com.

ANCSA Impact Series opens in Fairbanks

2011-10-05T10:55:00.001-08:00

The ANCSA Impact Series opened today with distinguished panel recalling the history and achievements of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which will soon celebrate its 40th anniversary. A complete agenda for this two-day event can be download here. The event is also being webcast at alaskalivestream.com.

Some highlights from this morning's presentations:

Chancellor Brian Rogers reiterated a promise to fully implement the vision of Troth Yeddha' Park by 2021.

Willie Hensley concluded his remarks with the following words:

"Our survival depends on whether or not we maintain our identity as Native people, and not just as business people."

The event is open to the public and continues today and tomorrow at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Wood Center Ballroom.

For more information see the ANSCA Impact Series website.

Troth Yeddha' lends name to new dance group

2011-10-04T07:00:00.001-08:00

A newly formed Athabascan dance group at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has adopted the Native name for the campus. The Troth Yeddh Dancers take their name from Troth Yeddha', or "Wild Potato Ridge."

For more information about the dance group call Rural Student Services at UAF.

Native Knowledge Network founders receive Humanities Award

2011-10-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

Ray Barnhardt and Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, co-founders of the Alaska Native Knowledge Network, are among the recipients of this year's Governor's Awards for the Arts and Humanities. Their work to incorporate Native ways of knowing into K-12 and higher education has had a profound impact across Alaska and beyond. Though Dr. Kawagley passed away earlier this year, his impact continues to be felt through the programs and initiatives he and Barnhardt have put in place. For example, the 2011 ANKN publication Guidelines for Strengthening Indigenous Languages continues to be a primary source for guiding language work today.

More information about these awards can be found in this Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story.

Frozen Whitefish rocks in Yugtun

2011-09-15T19:48:00.001-08:00

Though the band has an English name, Frozen Whitefish sings in Yup'ik, with tracks like Winga Ellpetlu and Callugluten. The band is features in today's Anchorage Daily News rural blog, which also features a video of the band performing one of their more hard-driving numbers, Maani Alaskami. ADN also reports that the band is currently working on a full-length album. The heavy strumming style will be familiar to many Alaskan, but the Yup'ik lyrics really set these guys apart. Looking forward to the full album!

You can listen to five tracks from their EP (including Maani Alaskami) on the Frozen Whitefish Myspace page.

Sharing the Dena'ina Language (video)

2011-09-11T06:47:00.001-08:00

In October of 2010 at its Living Our Cultures exhibition, the Anchorage office of the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center hosted a week long Dena’ina Language Institute workshop, the first in a series of workshops to support language revitalization programs statewide in Alaska. A short film on the workshop can be viewed on the National Museum of Natural History YouTube pag.

For more information about the exhibit, click here.

Alutiiq Museum receives accreditation

2011-09-10T10:35:00.000-08:00

This is now old news but it's no less significant. This past July the Alutiiq Museum became the first tribal repository in Alaska to gain national accreditation from the American Association of Museums.

Read a press release at the Alutiiq Museum site or at the Alaska Native News site.

Byron Mallot lecture in Fairbanks, Sept. 13

2011-09-09T08:22:00.000-08:00

Byron Mallot will present a public lecture on September 13 at 4PM in the Carol Brown Ballroom at the Wood Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks. A reception will follow. The lecture will also be available via live webstream at www.alaskalivestream.com.

Byron Mallott, founding President of the First Alaskans Institute, has been active for more than 40 years in the public and private sectors in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and nationally. Mr. Mallott will share his reflections on the impact of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act on Alaska since it was passed in 1971.

For more information, please visit http://ancsa.community.uaf.edu/ or call 1-888-574-6528. Please feel free to share this message with your contacts.

Juneau hires new professor of Tlingit

2011-09-08T17:40:00.000-08:00

Lance Twitchell has just been appointed Assistant Professor in the Alaska Native Languages program at the University of Alaska Southeast. According to an article in the Juneau Empire, Twitchell will be teaching Tlingit while also helping to develop Haida and Tsimshian program.

Remembering Andrew Balluta

2011-09-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

Andrew Balluta passed away September 1. He will be missed greatly by both family and others who have been fortunate to share in his company. Andrew's deep knowledge of Dena'ina language and culture and land grew out his many years spent working on the land, including his time as a park ranger in Lake Clark National Park. With Linda Ellanna he co-authored Nuvendaltin Quht’ana: The People of Nondalton, an ethnography and ethnohistory of the inland Dena’ina. In recent years he had become a major supporter of Dena'ina language work, working to record details of technical aspects of Dena'ina culture. Just a few years ago he worked with James Kari to produce a volume of stories entitled Shtutda’ina Da’a Sheł Qudeł, My Forefathers are Still Walking with Me, Verbal Essays on Tsaynen and Qizhjeh Traditions. This book was published in 2008 by the National Park Service and copies have become rather scarce, but it's a wonderful book and definitely worth seeking out.

I had the good fortune to spend time with Andrew over several summers at the Dena'ina Language Institute. While he was at first uncertain about the idea of teaching something so fundamental as language, he quickly became a major advocate for language teaching and revitalization. His love for his Native language was infectious and it inspired students to learn. Andrew was also a great advocate for making archival materials available to learners. I recall one time during a language meeting at the Alaska Native Heritage Center in 2004 there was some debate about whether recordings should be available. Andrew argued that it was important to get those old recordings out there so people can learn. He spoke so eloquently and persuasively that no one could disagree. Part of Andrew's legacy today is the existence of so much Dena'ina language material on the web, including the wonderful videos at the Naqenaga YouTube Channel.

You can hear one of Andrew's stories, Htsast'a Ghu Nał T'qighit'ach', at Qenaga.org.

A short obituary appeared in the Anchorage Daily News.

Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium, May 2012

2011-08-29T09:24:00.000-08:00

I just received word that the 2012 Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium will be held at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia May 17-19, 2012. A website will be up and running next month.

The call for presentations welcomes papers, workshops, performances and posters that address the broad themes of SILS 19:

The Evolving Story of Language Revitalization: From Oral Traditions to Technical Advances
The Continuing Cycle of Language Development: Maintaining the Integrity of Indigenous Languages.

We welcome presenters across the complete spectrum of Indigenous language from traditional teaching and learning to research, to language preservation innovations, to “effective practices” workshops, from formal to informal presentations and/or performances. An important sub-theme of the symposium is the importance of an understanding of how to garner new knowledge that will guide teachers, researchers, and other professionals. We would like to encourage former SILS presenters to consider coming back to provide updates and progress reports of their work.

If you would like to participate a short Letter of Intent should be forwarded electronically to Dr. Jack
Miller at Thompson Rivers University at jamiller@tru.ca by October 31, 2011.

Complete proposals are to be submitted electronically to Dr. Jack Miller at Thompson
Rivers University at jamiller@tru.ca not later than February 1, 2012.

Troth Yeddha' dedication

2011-08-26T09:03:00.000-08:00

You may recall that in February 2008 the Board of Regents of the University of Alaska approved the dedication of a tract of land on the Fairbanks campus as Troth Yeddha' Park. On May 28, 2011 a dedication ceremony was. An article about the ceremony appears in the UAF SunStar, which also provided the above video.

Monolingualism and the fear of non-English languages

2011-08-12T07:48:00.000-08:00

Writing Raven over at the Alaska Real blog recently raised the issue of whether keeping Native languages alive matters. Specifically, Raven addressed three objections often raised against Native language:

Natural Selection - or "All cultures/languages change"
"We're all going to one language anyways"
"We're all Americans now!" - or "Why do we have to dwell on the past?"

In her posts Raven points out that the current state of Alaska Native languages is not the result of "natural evolution" but rather the result of a deliberate policy of linguistic extermination which can be traced back to Sheldon Jackson's tenure as the General Agent of Education in Alaska, 1885-1894. Raven also makes clear the intrinsic and practical values of speaking and celebrating Native language. Raven's arguments are sound and rational.

However, I would argue that the anti-Native language arguments are actually more emotional than rational. The roots of the anti-Native language sentiment actually run much deeper and are based in the American obsession with monolingualism and fear of non-English languages. Why is it that Alaskans (and Americans more generally) seem to fear languages other than English?

The funny thing is, a large number of Americans actually can speak more than one language. A 2001 Gallup poll found that about one quarter of Americans speaks a language other than English fluently enough to hold a basic conversation. The catch seems to be that bilingualism in America is not stable. That same poll finds huge differences across the population as people age. So while 43% of younger Americans aged 18-29 can speak a second language, only 15% of those over 65 can. Since bilingual individuals tend not to become monolingual (that is, lose their ability to speak a second language), this must mean that America as a whole is becoming increasingly bilingual. As the population ages there will be an increasing percentage of bilinguals. But this fact may only increase American's fear of non-English language.

That fear goes back a long way. In the early days of colonial America there was actually quite a bit of bilingualism. In the mid-18th century more than a third of the colonial population was German-speaking, and the fear of these non-English speakers was just as great, leaning Benjamin Franklin write in 1751, "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion?" This history of anit-German sentiment in the 17th and 18th centuries mirrors the anit-Hispanic sentiment of the 20th and 21st centuries (see Dennis Baron's article on English only). Many American's continue to campaign for English-only laws which either require use of English or make English somehow "official." This in spite of the fact that almost all American's already speak English!

So, again, why do Americans fear Native (and other non-English) languages? Given that most Americans already speak English, explanations based on patriotic unity only go so far. Ultimately the argument against Native languages belies an element of racism. For some people this may be explict, so that anti-Native language sentiment simply reflects anti-Native anti-Native sentiment. But that's (hopefully) a minority. I would guess that the majority of American's arguing against the value of Native languages would not consider themselves to be racist. But in a society in which overt racism is unacceptable, linguistic discrimination is largely accepted. Given the widely acknowledged links between language and culture, it is easy to see how linguistic discrimination can serve as a proxy for cultural--and yes, racial--discrimination.

That said, surely not everyone who devalues Native language is a racist. Still, it's important to acknowledge that at least part of the argument against Native language is fundamentally emotional, appealing to deep-seated fears of cultural differences. Such fears are difficult to counter with rational arguments.

University of Victoria recruiting specialist in Indigenous Language Revitalization

2011-08-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

University of Victoria

Department of Linguistics

Tenure-Track Appointment in Indigenous Language Revitalization
Start Date: 1 July 2012

The Department of Linguistics at the University of Victoria invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Indigenous Language Revitalization, effective 1 July 2012. By the time of appointment, applicants are expected to have a PhD in Linguistics (or equivalent) with a specialization in Indigenous Language Revitalization. Within this specialization, preferred research sub-specializations include community-based research, language documentation, ethnographic sociolinguistics, first or second language acquisition processes, semantics, psycholinguistics or language cognition. We are seeking candidates with leadership experience in Indigenous language revitalization programs, an excellent record of scholarly achievement, and a commitment to excellence in undergraduate and graduate teaching.

The responsibilities of this position include MA and PhD student supervision and the teaching of courses in our undergraduate and graduate programs in Linguistics and in the BEd, BA, Certificate and MA programs in Indigenous Language Revitalization. Our department has particular strengths in linguistic description, speech production and perception, second language and applied linguistics research, community-based research, and languages of the Pacific Rim, including Asian and North American languages. We seek an individual with the ability to contribute strongly to the research profile of the Department and its administrative functions. Collaborative, interdisciplinary research, teaching, and program development are also encouraged.

Applicants should send, in hard copy, a letter of application, curriculum vitae, 2-4 publication samples, copies of teaching evaluations, and the names and e-mail addresses of three referees to: Dr John Esling, Chair, Department of Linguistics, University of Victoria, PO Box 3045, Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 3P4; e-mail: esling@uvic.ca; telephone: (250) 721-7422. The deadline for receipt of applications is 20 October 2011. Information about the Department of Linguistics and its programs can be found on the Department’s website at http://web.uvic.ca/ling/.

The University of Victoria is one of Canada’s most vigorous comprehensive universities. The Department of Linguistics has a phonetics lab, a speech research lab, a sociolinguistics research lab, a linguistics research lab, and the services of a full-time programmer-consultant.

The University of Victoria is an equity employer and encourages applications from women, persons with disabilities, visible minorities, Aboriginal peoples, people of all sexual orientations and genders, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of the University.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, in accordance with Canadian Immigration requirements, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be given priority.

NSF announces new language awards

2011-08-09T15:35:00.000-08:00

The National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities today announced 30 new awards through the Documenting Endangered Languages program. While none of these grants directly supports work on Alaska Native languages, a grant to University of Alaska researcher David Koester will support compilation of audio and video recordings in the Itelmen language spoken on the Kamchatka peninsula in neighboring Russia. Also, several funded projects may indirectly benefit Alaska Native languages. These include the Endangered Languages Catalog project and the Institute for Collaborative Language Research.

The deadline for applications for the next round of funding is September 20, 2011.

Links

What does it mean to restore a language?

2011-08-04T05:57:00.000-08:00

We hear much discussion of language teaching and language revitalization, but just what does it mean to revitalize a language? A recent story in the Juneau Empire quotes Sealaska Heritage Institute director Rosita Worl regarding Tlingit:

“I don’t know if we can ever completely restore it but we will always hear the voices of our ancestors on this land. It may never again be our first language but we will always hear it.”Some may see this as defeatist language, but I see it as one of the most realistic statements by a public figure regarding language revitalization. The goals of language revitalization are often vague. One hears phrases like "save our language" or "get our kids to speak our language" without any concrete sense of what is meant. In contrast, Worl's statement explicitly acknowledges that it may be impossible to create new, first language speakers of Tlingit. That is, kids who grow up speaking first Tlingit and only later learning English -- as their elders did 100 years or more ago.

But Worl's statement is not an acknowledgement of defeat, for she also says something more: "we will always hear the voices of our ancestors on this land." In saying this she recognizes that there are other ways to learn about and appreciate Native language. Learning the Tlingit alphabet using the new flashcards mentioned in the Juneau Empire story is one way. Learning place names. Learning to introduce oneself. The list goes on for as long as one's imagination can run. The point is, language revitalization need not be monolithic. There is no one right way or one goal. Rather, there are many paths to hearing those voices of the ancestors.

ANLC Director cited in article on endangered languages

2011-07-31T15:17:00.000-08:00

ANLC Director Lawrence Kaplan was cited in a a recent McClatchy Newspapers article on endangered languages. Here's a link to the article in the July 29 edition of the Bellingham Herald.

New Inupiatun Language Blog

2011-07-29T12:20:00.002-08:00

As my Inupiatun learning has progressed with elders and on my own, I have written everything down in notebooks, teaching friends and family bits and pieces incidentally. Inspired by the simple way the Pirurvik Centre in Iqaluit has layed out Inuit language grammar on their award winning Inuit language learning website, Tusaalanga, I decided to start a blog to catalogue useful grammar in a similar fashion.

I hope you'll enjoy and pass it along to other learners, and to get in touch with me if you'd like to contribute:

timothy.h.argetsinger@gmail.com

Quyaanaqpak

SHI present online Tlingit language learning program

2011-07-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

The Sealaska Heritage Institute has developed an online alphabet book which demonstrates the sounds of Tlingit. It's called Let's Learn Tlingit. You can try it out at:

http://www.sealaskaheritage.org/alphabet_cards.swf

The online version requires a browser which supports Flash, but CD versions can also be ordered from SHI.

There's a nice radio news story about the alphabet book from Juneau's KCAW.

Book sale scheduled for August 6

2011-07-21T16:03:00.000-08:00

ANLA/ANLC will join other local non-profit organizations a book sale at Pioneer Park. Saturday, August 6, 10:00-5:00. Details to follow.

Interactive online language map at Alaskool.org

2011-07-19T17:38:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the efforts of Ben Saylor (UAA ISER), an interactive online version of the Indigenous Peoples and Languages of Alaska map is now available. The direct link is:

http://www.alaskool.org/language/languagemap/index.html

Upcoming conference to highlight Indigenous place name issues

2011-07-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

The upcoming Geographic Names Conference will specifically address issues relating to Geographic Names of Indigenous Peoples. This is the annual meeting of the Council of Geographic Names Authorities, and it brings together representatives of place names boards from across the USA. The conference will be an ideal venue to develop strategies for furthering Alaska Native place name recognition.

The conference will be held October 25-29, 2011 in Honolulu, Hawai‘i . The venue is particularly appropriate, as Hawai‘i has made significant progress in not only recognizing indigenous names, but -- even more importantly -- getting names out into the public view. A visitor to Honolulu is immediately struck by the presence of indigenous names on street signs, complete with appropriate diacritic marking. Appropriately, the conference will be hosted by the Hosted by the Hawai‘i Board on Geographic Names.

Anyone with an interest in indigenous place name issues is encouraged to participate in this conference. If you are interested but unable to attend, you can express your support for Alaska Native place name issues by commenting on this post.

Conference website:
http://cogna50usa.org/2011hawaii/2011_hawaii.htm

Status of Alaska Native languages through the years

2011-07-13T09:16:00.000-08:00

Based on phone calls and emails I've received this past week, the new Indigenous Peoples and Languages of Alaska map has triggered quite a bit of interest in the status of Alaska Native languages, that is, the number of speakers and the state of endangerment. For example, Sunday's article in the Anchorage Daily News began with a discussion of the map but focused much more on the threat to Native languages. That's actually a very reasonable connection to make. And in fact, the original 1974 edition was motivated very much by a desire to make people aware of the perilous state of Alaskan languages even 40 years ago.

The two previous editions of the map made an effort to indicate language status village by village according to a three-point scale

closed dots indicate villages where most or all of the children speak the language
half-open dots indicate villages where some the children speak the language
open dots indicate villages where very few or none of the children speak the language

Based on feedback from several public forums language status was not indicated on the 2011 IPLA map. Instead, the authors agreed to provide this information digitally via a website which shows speaker numbers over time. That information is still being compiled from various sources and so not yet ready for prime time. However, thanks to efforts of UAF graduate student Jonathan Manker we now have language status information compiled from three previous maps:

Native Peoples and Languages of Alaska (Krauss, 1974)
Native Peoples and Languages of Alaska, revised edition (Krauss, 1982)
Inuit Nunait - Nunangit Yuget - Unangan Tanangin (Krauss, 1995)

The last of these only reports information for the Inuit-Yupik-Unangan languages, but that happens to be where the most change is seen between the 1980's and the 1990's. I mapped the speaker data this morning using GIS and generated the following three maps. (Click to enlarge)


Status of Alaska Native Languages in 1974

Status of Alaska Native Languages in 1982

Status of Alaska Native Languages in 1995 (Inuit-Yupik-Unangan)

There are certainly limits to this methodology. Assessment of number of children speaking are bound to be somewhat subject, and the boundaries between the three categories are deliberately fuzzy. Also, these assessments focus on first-language speakers and exclude second-language teaching efforts, which are becoming increasingly important today. Nonetheless, since the assessments were all compiled by the same author across the 1974, 1982, and 1995 maps, they are broadly comparable and so provide an interesting time series on the endangerment status of Alaska Native languages. Some may argue that the result is too depressing. While I don't necessarily disagree, I also think it's important to acknowledge what has happened to Native languages over the past few decades. Acknowledging the past is the first step to improving the future. The changes shown across these three maps are not news -- we already know that the number of children speaker Alaska Native languages has been declining -- but the imagery clearly shows the expanse of the problem. Let's hope that it provides a stimulus for more action.

We hope to get this information into a more accessible and interactive form, including speaker information from other sources as well. In the meantime if you'd like to explore the time series yourself the language status information has been added into the GIS dataset available from the Alaska Native Language Archive.

Alaska Native Language map in the news

2011-07-10T22:06:00.000-08:00

The newly revised Indigenous Peoples and Languages of Alaska map is featured in a story in today's Anchorage Daily News:

http://www.adn.com/2011/07/09/1960330/many-alaska-native-languages-endangered.html

A related story on the making of the map appears in the most recent issue of the UAF Frontiers Magazine.

http://www.uaf.edu/research/frontiers/language-map/

Tsuut'ina Talking Dictionary

2011-06-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

Here's just one of the many neat things I discovered at this year's Athabascan Languages Conference. The Tsuut'ina Gunaha Institute has developed a topical dictionary with linked audio. Try it out at:

http://tsuutinagunahainstitute.ca

I'll prepare a longer report on the conference once I recover from the long drive home.

One way of saying Dene?

2011-06-28T11:22:00.002-08:00

More and more often I hear suggestions to replace the word Athabascan with the indigenous term Dene. There's no doubt that Athabascan is an foreign term applied arbitrarily by outsiders. In fact, the first application of the term is well documented. The name was first applied by Albert Gallatin, a businessman and politician who had a particular interest in the classifications of Native American languages. In 1826 Gallatin concluded that all the "inland tribes" of the northwestern part of North America belonged to one family and spoke related languages. He acknowledged that the name for these related languages was entirely his own individual preference, writing:

--Albert Gallatin (quoted in Krauss, 1987)

The origin of the term itself in the Cree language is described in a short article by Michael Krauss. This article also traces the history of the various English spellings of the word.

The word Dene seems a natural alternative for Athabascan, since this word or something similar is used to refer to "person" in many Athabascan languages across Canada. Even distant Navajo uses the word Diné, with similar pronunciation though slightly different spelling. However, moving west to Alaska we find some differences.

Language	'person'
Ahtna	Koht'aene
Dena'ina	Dena
Deg Xinag	Dena
Holikachuk	Dina
Upper Kuskokwim	Dina
Koyukon	Dinaa
Lower Tanana	Dena / Kokht'ana
Tanacross	Dendeh
Upper Tanana	Dineh
Gwich'in	Dinjii
Han	Jëjee

Most of these words are pretty similar to Dene. Some are even pronounced nearly the same even though they may be spelled differently. Others, such as the Han term Jëjee, seem quite different (though clearly related). The Ahtna term is entirely different, literally referring to owner of a area or region. Ahtna does have a similar word Denae, but this has come to refer specifically to a wealthy man.

So where does this leave us? While Dene may not be the exact word for 'person' in every Alaska Athabascan language, it comes pretty close in most cases. And it is certainly closer than Athabascan. At least it comes from the same language family. The annual conference devoted to these languages has variously been referred to as Dene or Athabascan, and the conference website even uses the hybrid term Dene/Athabascan. We may not be far from abandoning the term Athabascan in favor of Dene.

More on Indigenous Tweets and social media

2011-06-15T05:48:00.000-08:00

We mentioned the website IndigenousTweets.com in an April 2011 post. This website is featured in an article in yesterday's Indian Country Today (thanks to Peter Austin for alerting us to this).

While there are still no Alaskan languages on the tweet list, social media are certainly playing a role in Alaskan language revitalization. One case in point is the recent surge of activity on the Gwich'in Facebook group page, with fairly constant activity over the past month and many posts in Gwich'in.

One thing I find encouraging about the use of indigenous languages in social media is the degree to which orthographic issues are NOT a barrier. Linguists have spent decades debating conventions for writing Native languages, arguing about how to mark features such as tone or vowel quality. Whether to write a velar fricative as x or kh. Whether the palatalized velar ejective stop should be written k'y or ky'. Etc. For many years insistence on the use of special characters and requirements to use proprietary fonts effectively led to a stagnation which left Native languages behind in the pre-computer era. (Anyone remember the dark days of LinguistSoftware fonts?)

Now social media has freed us from these pedagogical constraints and allowed language users and learners to focus on expressing themselves. As is clear from the Gwich'in Facebook posts, the emphasis is on content, not form. And that's a good thing. While linguists fret about spelling and classroom grammar, real language revitalization is happening online.

Indigenous Peoples and Languages of Alaska Map now available

2011-06-03T15:00:00.011-08:00

After much waiting and anticipation the newly revised Indigenous Peoples and Languages of Alaska Map now available. Both folded and flat (rolled) versions can be ordered through ANLC. Phone (907) 474-7874 or email fyanlp [at] uaf.edu. This full color (36" x 48") map features more than 270 indigenous place names across Alaska.

The map is a collaboration between the Alaska Native Language Center and the UAA Institute of Social and Economic Research. Thanks to everyone at ISER who worked to make this happen!

[more information]

Eyak Language Workshop scheduled this weekend in Anchorage

2011-06-03T08:16:00.000-08:00

Laura Bliss Spaan sends news of a new Eyak Language Workshop scheduled for the next two weekends in Anchorage. Since the passing of Marie Smith in 2008, Eyak has become a "sleeping" language with no fluent Native speakers. This workshop will thus be the first effort in Alaska to focus on revitalization of a sleeping language.

Workshops will be held on the weekends of June 4 and 5 and June 11 and 12 in the Reynolds Classroom at the Anchorage Museum. All sessions run from 1 to 5 p.m. The public is welcome. All workshops are free.

The complete press release follows.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: Laura Bliss Spaan • Project Director (907) 272-3878 • eyaklanguageproject@gmail.com

First Eyak Language Workshops Set for June

The first endangered Alaska language to lose its last native-born speaker is about to get a second chance. A series of innovative workshops will launch this weekend at the Anchorage Museum to take revitalization efforts to the next level.

Guillaume Leduey, a 22-year old from France who taught himself how to speak the language, is back in Alaska to lead the sessions. He is being joined by Roy Mitchell, a sociolinguist from UAA, who has developed immersion workshops for a number of Alaska Native languages.

This is the first time there’s ever been an opportunity or attempt to begin teaching Eyak systematically. Techniques such as Total Physical Response (TPR) and Accelerated Second Language Acquisition (ASLA) have been highly effective in helping new speakers learn a lot about their language in a short time.

Project Director Laura Bliss Spaan says the goal is to give learners the confidence and tools they need to bring their language back into their daily lives. Followup video lessons will be posted the project’s website so new speakers can continue to learn at their own pace.

Eyak Language Workshops will be held on the weekends of June 4 and 5 and June 11 and 12 in the Reynolds Classroom at the Anchorage Museum. All sessions run from 1 to 5 p.m. The public is welcome. All workshops are free. Participants are asked to RSVP by going to the Eyak Language Project Website or by emailing:

http://sites.google.com/site/eyaklanguageproject/
eyaklanguageproject@gmail.com

About the Eyak Language Revitalization Project

The project is a grassroots, community effort to bring back Eyak as a living, spoken language. The Eyak Preservation Council, a non-profit based out of Cordova, is spearheading the organizational effort to find long-term funding for the project. To date, the revitalization efforts have been supported with donations and grants from the Alaska Humanities Forum, The Eyak Corporation and the Chugach Heritage Foundation.

The Bilingual Advantage

2011-05-31T09:17:00.003-08:00

The latest press about the added benefits of bilingualism in today's New York Times, which include multi-tasking and delayed onset of Alzheimer's disease.

There are two major reasons people should pass their heritage language onto children. First, it connects children to their ancestors. The second is my research: Bilingualism is good for you. It makes brains stronger. It is brain exercise.

Senate hearing examines Native American language teaching

2011-05-29T21:36:00.001-08:00

On May 26 the Senate Indian Affairs Committee held a hearing on Native American language teaching. The hearing, entitled In Our Way: Expanding the Success of Native Language and Culture-Based Education, featured testimony from a number of experts, including Jana Harcharek, Director of Inupiaq Education for the North Slope Borough School District.

You can view a web cast of the hearing from the Senate page. Harcharek's testimony starts just after minute 89:00.

Chairman Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) points out that only 175 of more than 300 Native American languages are still spoken today.

The only decent news report I've found so far is here in CanadaViews.ca.

Tlingit children's book

2011-05-16T14:40:00.000-08:00

A new Tlingit children's book entitled Aanka Xóodzi ka Aasgutu Xóodzi Shkalneegi was featured in a story in the Sitka Sentinel (this link point to the story as it appeared in the Juneau Empire, as the Sentinel blocks access to non-subscribers). The book includes a CD with readings by Native speakers.

The book will be available for order soon through the Association of Alaska School Boards.

Native Language Endowment at UAS

2011-05-10T05:29:00.000-08:00

The University of Alaska Southeast now has an endowment to support the study of Alaska Native languages. Read th press release.

Inuit-Unangan Languages class offered online

2011-05-04T05:26:00.000-08:00

Roy Mitchell recently announced that he will teach an Inuit-Unangan languages class this Fall. The course will be offered online and in-person through University of Alaska Anchorage. To register go to uaonline.alaska.edu and look for ANTH A490, CRN 76704

Download a course information flyer.

From the course description:

Survey of the Eskimo-Aleut languages of Alaska, Canada, Siberia and Greenland and their dialects, comparative phonology and grammar, reconstructing proto-Eskimo, literacy traditions, and prospects for language survival. How many Inuit-Unangan languages are there? How are they similar to each other and how are they different? How can linguists reconstruct features of the Proto-Eskimo language from thousands of years ago? How do the structures and vocabulary of Inuit-Unangan languages shape how the world is classified? How many people speak Unangas, Yupik and Inuit languages today? Why are some Inuit-Unangan languages endangered – or are they all endangered? How are people trying to reverse language shift and what works successfully to encourage language survival? What’s the history of different literacy traditions and writing systems?
The required reading list includes the following books:

Berge, Anna and Moses Dirks. 2009. Niiĝuĝis Mataliin Tunuxtazangis: How the Atkans Talk: A Conversational Grammar. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska. $30 retail.

Dorais, Louis-Jacques. 1988. Tukilik: An Inuktitut Grammar for All. Inuit Studies, Occasional Papers, No. 2. Québec: Association Inuksiutiit Katimajiit, Université Laval. Out of print; PDF on Blackboard (BB).

Dorais, Louis-Jacques. 2010. The Language of the Inuit: Syntax, Semantics, and Society in the Arctic. McGill-Queen’s Native and Northern Series 58. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. $45 retail.

Jacobson, Steven A. and Anna Jacobson. 1995. A Practical Grammar of the Central Yup’ik Eskimo Language. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska. $42 retail.

Krauss, Michael E. 1995. Inuit Nunait/Nunangit Yuget (Map of the Inuit-Yupik-Aleut World). Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska. $16 retail.

For more information about the course contact Roy Mitchel (afdrm [at] uaa.alaska.edu)

Native American Youth Language Fair

2011-05-02T19:42:00.000-08:00

Last month the Sam Noble Museum at the University of Oklahoma hosted the 9th annual Native American Youth Language Fair. Though I've yet to attend one of these events, it sounds like the coolest thing ever. According to a story in the Native American Times 32 Native languages were spoken during the two-day event.

The fair features competitions in many different areas, including Native language oratory, film making, and song. Young people from across Oklahoma and other states compete, providing great incentive for language and cultural revival.

Wouldn't it be great to have something like this in Alaska?

Commission on Alaska Native Languages

2011-04-18T06:38:00.000-08:00

Back in October we reported that the Alaska Federation of Natives passed a resolution calling for the creation of a Commission on Alaska Native Languages. Among the charges of the Commission would be to "politically advocate on behalf of Alaska Native languages" and "facilitate and promote greater cooperation between Alaska Native language stakeholders." Many important and innovative efforts are currently underway to promote and revitalize Alaska Native languages, but there has so far been little coordination or cooperation between them. The Commission would give a power political voice to Alaska Native language advocates, allowing them to speak together with one voice. At the same time it would leed to greater sharing of knowledge between language programs.

What else could a Commission do? How should it be structured? These will be the topics of an open forum entitled Commission on Alaska Native Languages: What should a statewide AK Native language advocacy organization look like?, to be held as part of the Bilingual Multicultural Education/Equity Conference this week. If you in Anchorage, consider coming down to share your views. If you can't make it to Anchorage, feel free to post your ideas as comments in reply to this post and we'll make sure your voice is heard.

Date: Wednesday, April 20 Time: 10:15-11:30 AM Location: Sheraton Hotel, 401 6th Ave., Anchorage

For the record, some have asked whether the Alaska Native Language Center already fulfills the role of the proposed Commission, making the Commission redundant or unnecessary. This is certainly a question worthy of discussion, but I think there are several important distinctions between ANLC and the proposed Commission. ANLC was created in 1972 by state legislation with a mission to "document, cultivate, and promote Alaska Native languages." This mission does seem very much in line with the goals of the Commission. However, while ANLC can promote and advocate for Native languages, it is not very well placed to set the agenda for the future of Native language efforts in the state. For one thing, ANLC is a university-based entity, subject to the constraints of the academy and the very real constraints of funding. For another, ANLC lacks the broad base of community representation to give voice to all Alaskan languages. A much better model might be for ANLC to work in conjunction with the Commission on Alaska Native Languages, with ANLC providing advice to the Commission as needed and the Commission providing direction to ANLC's language work. In this way the Commission could help ANLC to better serve the identified needs for Alaska Native language work.

Indigenous Tweets

2011-04-14T09:08:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Leon Unruh for alerting us to this website which keeps track of tweets in indigenous languages. While no Alaskan language makes the list, some American languages do. Navajo is listed as have 4 users with 195 tweets. And Hawaiian has 24 users with 567 total tweets. Pretty cool. #twitter

http://indigenoustweets.com/

Research vessel receives Inupiaq name

2011-04-13T07:47:00.000-08:00

This past Monday a keel laying ceremony was held for the new National Science Foundation research vessel, to be named R/V Sikuliaq, after an Inupiaq word mean 'young sea ice'. The new vessel will replace the Alpha Helix. This is progress on many fronts, not least the use of an Alaska Native name.

http://www.sfos.uaf.edu/arrv/

Grant Opportunity -- Genographic Legacy Fund

2011-04-09T18:04:00.000-08:00

The Genographic Legacy Fund is inviting applications for grants. GLF awards grants on an annual basis for community-driven projects directly preserving or revitalizing indigenous or traditional culture. Projects from around the world have been funded through this source.

To be eligible for funding, projects must be community-driven and deliver a positive, tangible, and timely benefit that is sustainable after GLF funds have been expended. Projects must also show a strong level of local community involvement in their planning, governance, and implementation.

Funded projects have included documenting a traditional language, oral history, or ceremony; creating culturally-specific educational materials and programs; establishing a local museum or archive; inter-generational knowledge sharing; and preserving significant sites and artifacts.

Applications are due June 15 annually.

Awards will typically not exceed US$25,000.

Restrictions: GLF grants are not intended to be used for indirect costs, overhead, legal actions, and other expenses not directly related to the proposed project. Funds may not be used for salaries, travel or conferences, or for construction or land acquisition.

Applicants with sufficient email access are encouraged to submit their application via email to GenographicLegacy@ngs.org.

Applicants without sufficient email access may submit their application by mail or fax.
Genographic Legacy Fund c/o National Geographic Society
1145 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
USA
Fax: +1 202.857.7333

Please see the web site for further application details
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/legacy_fund.html.

The power of signs

2011-04-06T18:30:00.001-08:00

I've always been impressed by the simple power of signs. Walking through the streets of Honolulu, reading all the Hawaiian names on street signs, one feels the presence of Hawaiian language and people. Such a simple symbol -- a street sign -- can have such powerful effect. An article in the Duluth News Tribune describes how one person's experiences with signage in Hawaii inspired them to create Ojibwe language signs in Bemidji, Minnesota.

If it can happen in Minnesota, why not Alaska? If Bemidji State University can add Ojibwe signage, why can't University of Alaska Fairbanks add Tanana Athabascan signs? It's a question I've asked many times but I've yet to receive a satisfactory answer.

Ahtna name makes official review list

2011-03-30T15:39:00.000-08:00

A proposal for a new official place name based on an Ahtna name is currently under consideration by the USGS Board of Geographic Names. The name Nen' Yese' Ridge appears on the quarterly review list #406. This name was approved by the Alaska Historical Commission at its meeting in November 2010. Unless someone voices opposition to this proposal (unlikely, given that it currently has no official name and is referred to locally as Nen Yese) this name is likely to become official within the year.

Immersion workshop

2011-03-25T08:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a great opportunity to receive intensive training in the basics of immersion language teaching.

Immersion A-Z: Essential Basics for Language Immersion Programs

June 29 through July 1, 2011
(immediately following the American Indian Language Development Institute
(AILDI) 2011)
Tucson, Arizona

presented by

Consortium of Indigenous Language Organizations (CILO)
Language Immersion for Native Children Program (LINC)

Dear Friend,

This three-day workshop provides an overview of diverse essential elements
that are required for successful planning and implementation of immersion
programs. The workshop provides hands-on experience on language immersion
methods, the proven effective way of transmitting language knowledge from
one generation to the next in a variety of contexts:

At home (Family Language Program)
In the community where an elder works with a learner (Master-Apprentice
Program)
At Day Care Centers where babies are cared for
At Preschool/Head Start where very young toddlers interact with each other
and with caregivers
At schools where young children are formally educated to be active and
contributing members of the community and of the world

Participants will learn how to design and implement immersion teaching,
how to make long range plans for language programs, how to create language
activities, how to produce fun and useful materials for language learning,
and how to assess the effectiveness of the language immersion program.
Deadline to register is April 15, 2011.

For registration form:
www.ilinative.org/cilo/CILORegFormImmersionRev2.9.11.pdf

For more information about CILO or other workshops:
www.ilinative.org/cilo/

LINC is the flagship program of the Indigenous Language Institute,
Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, American Indian
Language Development Institute, and Oklahoma Native Language Association,
which, together, formed the Consortium of Indigenous Language
Organizations (CILO). LINC is a program funded by the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation to develop a comprehensive training program for tribal
administrators, teachers, and leaders involved in programs that affect
children ages 0 to 8.

Collection Manager at Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History

2011-03-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is currently recruiting a Collection Manager. This is an opportunity to work with one of the most impressive Native language archives in the country. Over the past decade the Native American Languages collection at the Sam Noble Museum has emerged as a leader in in providing access to Native language archive materials and services to Native communities and language programs.

Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History website
http://www.snomnh.ou.edu/collections-research/nal.htm

Application Information
http://jobs.ou.edu (search listings for requisition 11275)

Position Description

Responsible for assisting Curator in the management and maintenance of the collections in the Department of Native American Languages at the SNOMNH.

Representative duties:
-Assists curator in maintaining the overall integrity of the Native American Languages collections at the SNOMNH. Achieves and maintains the highest professional standards in the long-term care and management of analog and digital audio and video collections. Investigates and learns the latest audio/video recording, editing, and storing best practices used by other archival professionals dedicated to audio/video documentation and archiving. Maintains and adds to the Department's reprint collection on language documentation, recorded sound collection care, and issues concerning endangered language archives.
-Maintains collection by testing and migrating data when needed, upgrading and replacing labels, boxes, and other physical and digital storage as needed, verifying location of originals and copies, and ensuring stability of collection room conditions, including cleanliness and environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity. Follows all IPM protocol and procedures.
-Oversees the processing of incoming collections. Works with registrar to complete accessions. Catalogs the new collections and enters metadata into database. Follows exact procedures for digitization, copying, housing original materials, and integrating objects and data into the collection. Communicates effectively with depositors as needed.
-Maintains current collection database, which is available for searching on the SNOMNH website. Interfaces with the SNOMNH IT personnel to ensure the integrity of the database. Checks website frequently to determine whether problems have arisen. Works with personnel on national level (i.e., OLAC, E-MELD) to integrate collection data with national databases where appropriate.
-Maintains manuscript and ephemera collections. Is familiar with protocols for preparation and archiving of print collections.
-Responsible for all phases of loans, including digitization, copying, editing, filling out and maintaining loan forms, and corresponding with lenders to ensure the safe arrival and return of specimens. Handles access to collection and copying requested by curator and graduate students in Native American Languages and researchers (academic and private).
-Maintains inventory of all department supplies and equipment. In consultation with the curator, orders supplies and equipment as needed.
-Assists in and conducts collection-related research as directed by the curator. May assist curator in Native American Languages fieldwork locally and abroad. Assists in gathering data for the curator's grant proposals or with writing grant proposals. Develops professionally by being member of various societies as appropriate (i. e. ARSC, DELAMAN, SPNHC, AAM, LSA, SSILA) and attending annual meetings or workshops provided by these societies as funding permits. Engages in other professional development activities as approved by the curator.
-Oversees daily function of Native American Languages lab and research library. Ensures that all department personnel are informed of and adhere to all health and safety guidelines. Implements and monitors approved museum and department policies, procedures, protocols, guidelines, and operations.
-May give department tours, present lectures, or assist museum education and exhibit personnel with Native American Languages-related or collection-related topics. May participate in service to the SNOMNH, the museum community, university, and professional organizations at the local, state, regional, and national level.
-Conducts other tasks as assigned by the curator.

Alutiiq Language Summit

2011-03-17T15:33:00.000-08:00

An Alutiiq Language Summit was held last Thursday at the Alutiiq Museum. According to this story in the Kodiak Daily Mirror, the summit provided an opportunity to reflect on the accomplishments of the museum's National Science Foundation grant, which will be ending in June. The project has produced many hours of Native language recordings while creating 285 new words. Most importantly, by bringing together speakers and learners the project has served as a catalyst for Alutiiq language revitalization efforts.

http://alutiiqmuseum.org/alutiiq-language.html

Ya Ne Dah Ah school featured in Alaska Magazine

2011-03-16T13:03:00.000-08:00

The Ya Ne Dah Ah School in Chickaloon was featured in a 9-page article in the February issue of Alaska Magazine. Unfortunately, the article is not available online, but it's worth picking up a copy of the magazine just for this article. Congratulations to all the teachers, students, and elders who have come together to make this school such a success!

EarthAction Endangered Languages Program grants

2011-03-08T08:15:00.000-09:00

The EarthAction Endangered Languages Program provides small grants for work on endangered languages in North America and Russia. Last year they made six awards totalling $14,000. Application deadline is May 16.

Here is the program announcement:

Greetings,

Endangered Languages Program is pleased to announce its continuation into the fourth year!

Endangered Languages Program aims to support preservation and revival of those indigenous languages which are threatened with extinction and which are vital to indigenous cultures of Siberia and North/Central America. One of the components of the Program is financial assistance to projects working towards these goals.

ELP was initiated in 2008 by Sacred Earth Network, but since then has moved under the umbrella of EarthAction Network (EAN), 501(c).

Please address inquiries about the Endangered Languages Program to the Program's Coordinator, Medovaya, at mariyamsacredearth@gmail.com

Website: www.earthaction.org/endangered-languages-program.html

Language endangerment is a global issue

2011-03-02T13:45:00.000-09:00

More evidence that language endangerment is a global issue. Alaska Native Language Center director Lawrence Kaplan was quoted in a story in the Calcutta Telegraph -- that's Calcutta, India.

Cherokee on the iPad

2011-02-27T18:03:00.000-09:00

The Cherokee language is unique in its widespread adoption of a syllabic writing system designed by a Native speaker. Equally unique is that users of this writing system have persevered to implement the system electronically. Cherokee syllabics are incorporated int the Unicode character set and have been widely available on personal computers since 2003. Now a new app developed by Thornton Media makes it possible to learn Cherokee syllabics on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod.

A syllabic writing system differs from an alphabetic writing system in that each symbol represents not just a single consonant or vowel but rather an entire syllable. Given the number of possible combinations of consonants and vowels which may form a syllable, a syllabic writing usually system requires more symbols. Some syllabic systems get around this problem by using regular variation of a symbol in a meaningful way. For example, in the Cree syllabary the syllables pa and ta are indicated with ᐸ an ᑕ, respectively. Reversing these symbols changes the vowels from a to o, so that po and to are represented by ᐳ and ᑐ, respectively. So in the Cree system one need learn only about 15 basic symbols.

In contrast, the Cherokee system doesn't use rotation or symbol variation to indicate meaning. Instead, 85 unique symbols are used to indicate different syllables. So learners have many more symbols to learn in order to become literate. That's where the app becomes very helpful.

My attempt to write the character for ka.

Thanks to Thornton Media I had the opportunity to test-drive the Writing Cherokee for iPad app. This app provides representations of each of the 85 Cherokee characters, organized by row. Clicking on a character both displays the character and plays a recording of the syllable pronounced by a native speaker. The app takes full advantage of the iPad's touch screen by writing the character as if it were being written on the screen and also allowing the user to practice tracing the character. This is particularly useful because the Cherokee characters are for the most part different from those in the English alphabet--or any other alphabet for that matter. Also, the recordings are very high quality--crisp and clean.

All in all it's a pretty simple app, but incredibly useful for learning these 85 characters, most of which will be new to learners. The same company also produces an iPhone/iPod version of the Writing Cherokee app, as well as a Learning Cherokee app. The latter contains basic phrases organized by category. Like the Writing Cherokee app, the recordings are very clear and useful. There's a free "lite" version which you can download if you'd like to check out how it works.

Cherokee Lite app

This story in the Muskogee Phoenix describes the impact of tools like the iPad app on Cherokee language revitalization.

Thornton Media has certainly blazed new ground with this app. It would be great to see apps like these for Alaskan languages.

The earliest Athabascans?

2011-02-24T15:59:00.000-09:00

University of Alaska Fairbanks today announced the finding of what may be the oldest human remains in North America. The team was led by Ben Potter of UAF, and since the discovery Ben has worked closely with several stakeholders, including the Tanana Chiefs Conference and the Native Village of Healy Lake. At 11,500 years old, this site provides further evidence for very ancient occupation of the Tanana Valley by Athabascan peoples. The site includes remains of a child burial and a house structure, providing an incredible window into ancient Athabascan history.

Ben Potter and colleagues also published a paper describing the find in the Feb 25 edition of the journal Science.

Native language airport greeting

2011-02-18T14:19:00.000-09:00

I've always been impressed by the amounts of awareness of Naticve language in Hawaii. It seems everywhere you look Hawaiian language is found on signs. And now it can be heard too as visitors enter the Honolulu airport. According to this story a Hawaiian language greeting will be played in the arrivals hall. Just imagine the impact a Dena'ina language greeting could have in the Anchorage airport?

International Mother Language Day, February 21

2011-02-16T13:54:00.000-09:00

Next Monday is International Mother Language Day. This date has been celebrated by UNESCO every year since 2000. It celebrates the importance of mother language (or Native language) as part of cultural heritage.

--Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO

For 2011 Mother Language Day focuses on the theme of information and communication technologies for the safeguarding and promotion of languages and linguistic diversity.

Funding Opportunity

2011-02-10T07:46:00.000-09:00

The 2011 grant application round for the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP) opens on 10th February 2011. ELDP funds PhD scholarships (3 years), postdoctoral fellowships (2 years), major documentation projects (up to 3 years) and provides small grants (up to 1 year and 10,000 GBP). The closing date for receipt of applications is 28th March 2011.
For further information and to use the online application system, visit www.hrelp.org/grants/apply or email: eldp@soas.ac.uk

National Breath of Life

2011-01-28T17:09:00.000-09:00

An exciting new opportunity for language revitalization is scheduled for summer 2011. The National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Endangered Languages is designed to help language learners and language activists make use of existing documentary materials for their languages.

Many Native American languages--including most of those in Alaska--are actually quite well documented from a linguistic point of view. However, much of this documentation is written for a specialist audience, making use of jargon and obscure terminology. Anyone who doubts this claim should consider the case of Tlingit, which is extremely well documented in the works of Constance Naish (1966), Gillian Story (1966), and Jeff Leer (1991). While those descriptions are quite extensive they are very difficult to read.

Breath of Life has been held on a local level in California for several years (see the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival). In 2011 Breath of Life becomes a national level event, and participants will have access to the extensive collections of the National Anthropological Archives. Participants in the Breath of Life Institute work in a team with a mentor/linguist to learn how best to access and make use of existing materials for their language.

The institute takes place in Washington, DC, June 13-24, 2011.

The application deadline is March 1, 2011.

http://www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/BOL/

ANA Language Grants

2011-01-19T08:03:00.000-09:00

Rumor has it that the ANA Native American language grant program is under threat from budget hawks in Washington. But for now at least, this year's round is open for application. This program has been the most stable and reliable source of funds for grass roots language efforts in Alaska.

The description below is from the ANA website.

Native American Language Preservation And Maintenance Grants
The Administration for Children and Families, Administration for Native Americans announces the availability of Fiscal Year 2011 funds for community-based projects for the Native Language Preservation and Maintenance program. The purpose of ANA grant funding is to promote economic and social self-sufficiency for American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and other Native American Pacific Islanders, including American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Native Language Preservation and
Maintenance program provides funding for projects to support assessments of the status of the native languages in an established community, as well as the planning, designing, and implementing of native language curriculum and education projects to support a community's language preservation goals.

For more information, see:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/open/foa/view/HHS-2011-ACF-ANA-NL-0139

Still much to learn from place names

2011-01-14T16:11:00.000-09:00

Some amazing things happened today. We had a planning session at the Tanana Chiefs Conference to talk about the documentation of Alaska Native place names. I had the opportunity to meet Robert Charlie, who is an acknowledged expert on the Minto Flats area. He casually mentioned the name Dradlaya Bena', or 'round whitefish lake' in reference to a former lake covering part of the Minto Flats. This name has not been previously documented, but I have suspected for some time that something like it might exist. Here's why.

As I pointed out in a presentation I gave at the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas in January 2009, and in a forthcoming paper, the place where the Chatanika River breaks out of the mountains and pours onto the Minto Flats is known as Dradlaya Chaget, or 'round whitefish mouth'.

Now, as Jim Kari has often pointed out, Athabascan place names come in generative sets, whereby a single name is combined with standard generic terms such as nik'a 'stream', chaget 'mouth', tl'ot 'headwaters', and -- yes -- bena' 'lake'. Usually one expect to find the 'mouth' name where a stream meet another body of water, but in the case of Dradlaya Chaget there is no other water body: the Chatanika River just flows on. So why use the term chaget here? It only makes sense when one imagines that there must once have been a body of water there, such as a lake. And it is this suspicion which Robert Charlie so readily verified today. Mind you, he volunteered this freely, before I had mentioned anything about Dradlaya Chaget or even said anything whatsoever about Tanana place names.

Clearly this example shows that place names can hold information about the history of people, landscape, and peoples relationship to the land. And we still have much to learn from Native place names if we're willing to listen.

Note: my article referring to Dradlaya Chaget will appear as:

Holton, Gary. 2011. Differing conceptualizations of the same landscape: The Athabaskan and Eskimo language boundary in Alaska. Landscape in Language, ed. by D.M. Mark, A.G. Turk, N. Burenhult & D. Stea. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

I'll post a copy once it is available.

37th Annual Bilingual Multicultural Education Equity Conference, April 20-22

2011-01-05T06:16:00.003-09:00

The date has been set for the 37th Annual Bilingual Multicultural Education Equity Conference. The call for presenters is open, with a deadline just over two weeks from now on January 21. The theme of this year's conference is Pathways to Equity: Culture, Competence & Connection. I'm still trying to sort out what that means, but notably, the featured keynote speaker, Misty Adoniou, is a specialist in English Language & Literacy. Nothing against Ms. Adoniou, but it's disappointing to see this focus on learning English, while the use of Alaska Native languages continues to decline. Let's hope we see more Native language presentations at this year's conference.

http://www.bmeec.net

New life for Eyak

2011-01-03T21:13:00.000-09:00

The new Eyak Language Project website was featured in a radio story today on APRN. The story cites Marie Smith's granddaughter Sherry Smith, noting how the interest of French student Guillaume Ledeuy has inspired people to learn Eyak. The story also notes the crucial role of Michael Krauss' comprehensive documentation of the language in facilitating language revitalization.

Listen the complete APRN story here.

Eyak Language Project launches new website

2010-12-30T14:53:00.000-09:00

The Eyak Language Project issued a press release today announcing the upcoming launch of their new website on January 1. The site will include audio clips and other materials intended to support the revitalization of Eyak, a now sleeping language. The complete text of the press release is below.

New Hope for the Eyak Language

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 30, 2010

CONTACT: Laura Bliss Spaan * Eyak Language Project * (907) 250-3696

Eyak became the first of Alaska's endangered Languages to be declared 'extinct' when the last Native speaker, Marie Smith Jones, died in January 2008. Now, nearly three years later, there is an ambitious new effort to make Eyak the first Alaska language to be brought back to life.

On January 1st, 2011, a website will be launched to begin the process of helping Eyaks learn the basics of their ‘lost’ language. It is just one part of the Eyak Language Project: q'aayaa tl'hix (A New Beginning) - an intensive effort to document, preserve and distribute learning materials to individuals and institutions throughout Alaska and beyond.

The website will feature a WORD of the WEEK selected from the archival recordings of the language with Marie Smith Jones, along with new recordings of words and phrases modeled by Dr. Michael Krauss, the linguist who has spent nearly 50 years documenting the language in writing. The website will also include lessons designed by Guillaume Leduey, a 21-year-old man from France who taught himself how to speak the language from online materials when he was just twelve.

“We have been given a rare, second-chance to revive our language,” said Sherry Smith, the project’s Cultural Coordinator and granddaughter of Marie Smith Jones. “This isn’t just about saving recordings of words and phrases to become archival artifacts. It’s about making the words, and the unique view of the world that Eyak provides, have real meaning again today in peoples’ lives.”

The project, which is being coordinated by the Eyak Preservation Council in Cordova, was recently awarded a grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum. The Eyak Corporation is providing cash and in-kind support.

“We called this project, q’aayaa tl’hix, which, in Eyak, basically means to start something once again,” said Laura Bliss Spaan, the project director. “It’s a hopeful and inspiring way to begin a new year - and a new era.”

The website will go online just after midnight on January 1st at:

http://sites.google.com/site/eyaklanguageproject/

Na-Dene T-shirt available online

2010-12-23T16:23:00.000-09:00

The Na-Dene t-shirt which I mentioned in a previous post is now available online from Nomadic Stars. You can see more details of the map on their website: http://nomadicstars.com/Shirts.html

Finalizing the Alaska Native language map

2010-12-22T09:00:00.000-09:00

Last week I met with my colleagues at ISER (Institute of Social and Economic Research) to complete the FINAL edits to the revised Indigenous Peoples and Languages of Alaska Map. It's been nearly three decades since the last edition of the map was published by Michael Krauss in 1982. The revised version differs in several ways, for example by omitting speaker and population statistics, while adding indigenous place names. This latter effort has turned out to be much more difficult than I had ever expected.

Though we are adding only names for villages and prominent rivers and lakes, we encounter many complications. The foremost difficulty is that there is no comprehensive reference for Alaska Native place names. While Donald Orth's massive Dictionary of Alaska Place Names (1967) is an excellent reference for English names, including those which derive from Native names, it is limited to place names in English, not the more traditional Native names. Some publications document place names for particular languages -- notably Jim Kari's Ahtna Place Names Lists -- but none covers Alaska as a whole. Moreover, for many languages the documentation is obscure and inaccessible.

Even where documentation exists it is not always accurate. For example, the name for the village of Deering appears on Krauss' 1995 Map of the Inuit-Yupik-Aleut World as Ipnaitchiaq. This was corrected for me by Ann Lawrence and Lawrence Kaplan to Ipnatchiaq. Not an easy typo to catch. Then there are the complicated discussions about what constitutes an English vs. Native name. Take the case of Nanwalek, formerly known as English Bay. We choose to list Nanwalek as the Native name and English Bay as the corresponding English name. But in fact the English name of the village was officially changed to Nanwalek in 1991. Thus, Nanwalek is now both the Native and English names. But leaving the former English name on the map gives some connection with the past. A similar situation arises with Sheldon Point, since 1999 known (in both Yup'ik and English) as Nunam Iqua.

The case of Haida Gwaii is trickier. On June 17, 2010 the Canadian Government returned the name Queen Charlotte Islands to the Haida people, who then restored the name Haida Gwaii. But as is clear from the spelling of the name, this is actually an English name which derives from the Haida name spelled (depending on orthographic choice) Xaadláa Gwáayaay. On the map we now use Haida Gwaii as the English name in place of the former Queen Charlotte Islands.

Another difficult choice is how to handle the language family commonly known as Eskimo-Aleut. As I discussed in a previous post, there are some who would like to use the word Inuit as a replacement for Eskimo. This is problematic, since it appears to exclude Yupik, clearly a part of the Eskimo family. On the map we chose to use the hyphenated term Inuit-Yupik in place of Eskimo.

We've come a long way since we started this project three years ago. There is a long list of contributors and collaborators who have helped to improve the map along the way, but a special thanks goes to Jim Kerr at ISER for having the drive and the vision to make this project happen.

Historical Commission approves new Native name: Nen' Yese'

2010-12-20T09:25:00.001-09:00

At its Fall 2010 meeting on November 30 the Alaska Historical Commission approved a new Native place name, Nen' Yese'. It's an Athna Athabaskan name which denotes a prominent ridge east of Lake Louise, to the north of the Glenn Highway. The name will now be recommended to the US Board on Geographic Names for inclusion as an official place name on USGS maps.

The fact that the ridge known to the Ahtna as Nen' Yese' did not already have an English name was probably crucial to the success of this proposal. The process makes it very difficult to change existing names. Witness the ongoing battle to change the name of North America's highest peak to Denali. So it is that three other proposals to add Native names were tabled at the November meeting. These were:

Alakanuk village to Alarneq
Negrohead Creek to Łochenhyatth (or Nachenyath)
Negrohead Mountain to Tl'oo Khanishyah

The December 18th edition of the Tundra Drums quotes UAF's Walkie Charles as saying that the move to use indigenous names such as Alarneq is an important stem in reclaiming language. Alarneq is an Yup'ik (or Yugtun) word, written in the standardized writing system which has been used for writing Yup'ik for more than 40 years. The name Alakanuk represents a poor attempt to pronounce the name by non-speakers of the language. Perhaps the fact that Alakanuk is at least an approximation of the Yup'ik name led the Board to defer in this case. Other successful proposals to change village names have involved the replacement of English names which had absolutely nothing to do with the indigenous name. For example, the name English Bay was changed to Nanwalek in 1991, and the name Sheldon Point was changed to Nunam Iqua in 1999.

One can hope that the Alarneq proposal will eventually be successful. If so, we may see more such proposals in the future. The Tundra Drums article indicates that the Association of Village Council Presidents, who sponsored the Alarneq proposal, may submit more village name changes. The forthcoming revision to the Indigenous Peoples and Languages of Alaska map includes 210 indigenous village names spelled according to the local writing system, so there are plenty of opportunities for name changes.

The proposals for Łochenhyatth and Tl'oo Khanishyah are somewhat different in that they were made not an indigenous organization but by a middle school class in Fairbanks which objected to the existing English name. These are not village names but rather--as in the case of Nen' Yese'--geographic features. As such it is difficult to imagine much opposition to these changes. Note however that a couple years ago Australian Aboriginal groups actually opposed a proposal to change the name of a place known in English as Mount Niggerhead. The key seems to be making sure that the names originate from the language of the land on which the feature is located--which in the two proposals here is certainly the case: Łochenhyatth is a Lower Tanana Athabaskan name, while Tl'oo Khanishyah is a Gwich'in name.

Spelling of "Athabascan" through time

2010-12-17T13:56:00.001-09:00

There has been much debate about how to spell the word Athabascan. Michael Krauss points out that the origin of the word is well-known, but four different spellings have been used (read his article here). The ATHAPBASCKAN-L listerv acknowledges this variation by combining the four spellings into one. Within Alaska the "b" spelling has predominated of late, with continuing debate regarding "c" versus "k".

Now thanks to Google Books it is possible to trace the four spellings through history. If we enter the four different spellings we get the above graph of frequency of mentions in published books (in English). This reveals a surge in the p-c spelling Athapascan in the early 20th century, followed by a spike in the p-k spelling Athapaskan around 1980. More recently the frequencies of b-k, p-k, and b-c spellings converge, with the p-c spelling falling out of favor. Bottom line: there are many ways to spell this word.

Try it yourself.

Alaska Natve Languages on Facebook

2010-12-15T09:00:00.002-09:00

Yesterday I discovered the Eyak Language Project on Facebook, which led me to wonder how many other ANL's have their own Facebook pages. Here I'm referring not to the "info" pages, which appear to be automatically generated copies of Wikipedia pages, but real groups composed of real people advocating for Native languages. The Eyak page is certainly in this vein. It has been at least a century since Eyak has had as many speakers as this group now has members (currently 52). Soon the page will feature an Eyak word-of-the-week.

Another one of my favorites is the Gwich'in Language page. What I like about this group is the amount of Native language which gets used in the discussions. Many observers have commented on the need to create venues in which endangered languages can be used. Victor Golla has called these "secondary language communities." The Gwich'in page on FB certainly counts as one, encouraging and facilitating language use. Notice that the notoriously complex orthography -- including nasal hooks, tone marks, and barred-l -- does not even get in the way. The desire to communicate trumps the perceived barrier of writing every time.

Moving north and west there's a page for the Iñupiaq Word of the Day. While the posts aren't exactly daily (the latest I could find was more than a month old), they do feature videos demonstrating pronunciation of words and phrases. And users actually make requests for recording particular phrases. With 1922 "likes" this may be the most popular Alaska Native language FB page.

I may have already mentioned the Dena'ina Qunuhdulzex page in previous posts. This is a great information page eighth many photos, though so far not much language use.

I'm sure there are yet more FB pages out there devoted to Alaska Native language. If you know of one, post a comment about it!

Cataloging Eliza Jones' language materials

2010-12-12T22:32:00.001-09:00

Eliza (right) explains a document to her daughter, Susan Paskvan

Last week we welcomed Koyukon linguist Eliza Jones to the Alaska Native Language Archive to help sort and catalog some 30 or so boxes of language materials accumulated during her career at the Alaska Native Language Center. Eliza was one of the founding members of ANLC in 1972. Following her retirement in 1990 she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. But she has continued to work to document and teach the Koyukon language for the past two decades. She is co-editor--along with Jules Jetté--of the Koyukon Athabaskan Dictionary, a massive work of scholarship which represents the combined work of two dedicated scholars. Jetté died eleven years before Jones was born, so the dictionary collaboration spans more than six decades of research.

Page of notes taken by Eliza
while working with Koyukon
speaker Charlie Brush

The publication of the Koyukon Dictionary in 2000 was followed by the relocation of ANLC to a new building in 2002. As a result many of the reference materials used during the production of the dictionary were never properly re-integrated into the archive collection. Working in the Archive last week Eliza was able to identify a number of unpublished texts, sorting them by speaker and village. Everything was sorted into boxes corresponding to categories such as grammar, geography, curriculum, texts, names, etc. Now we will have our work cut out for us re-cataloging and re-boxing these materials as we prepare it for scanning by our partner Digital Photographic Services. There is much work yet to do, but we hope that soon much of this information will be made accessible to Koyukon language learners and others with an interest in Koyukon language.

Jim Kari looks over manuscript lexical material compiled by David Henry and annotated by Eliza -- possibly not consulted during the compilation of the Koyukon dictionary

Eliza left Fairbanks for Koyukuk on Friday afternoon. We were sad to see her go but thankful for all the time she put into sorting this valuable material--and for her willingness to make it available for future generations of scholars.

By the way, there's a nice biography of Eliza Jones on Project Jukebox.

Hughes and Huslia elders vist Alaska Native Language Archive

2010-11-30T11:22:00.000-09:00

Earlier this month the Alaska Native Language Archive welcome fifteen visitors from the Koyukon-speaking villages of Hughes (Hut'odlee Kkaakk'et) and Huslia (Ts'aateyhdenaade Kk'onh Denh). Their visit was part of a larger visit to the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus hosted by the Gates of the Arctic National Park and the Alaska & Polar Regions Oral History Program. Archive founder Michael Krauss provided an introduction to the Archive and overview of the history of Koyukon language work. Although much of the Koyukon collection is current off-site as part of an ongoing cataloging project, the visitors were able to locate numerous language resources, including lists of clan names, unpublished stories, and prayer books.

Here are a few photos (thanks to Marla Statscewich for some of these).

C'ek'aedi Hwnax: A local language archive with international ambitions

2010-11-24T08:00:00.000-09:00

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to visit C'ek'aedi Hwnax, the Ahtna Cultural Center in Copper Center. C'ek'aedi Hwnax was dedicated last March as both a repository of cultural heritage and a center for educational outreach. My own visit was concerned with one particular aspect of this mission: the development of an Ahtna language archive. The staff at C'ek'aedi Hwnax is now engaged in a two-year project funded in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to create a digital archive of Ahtna Athabascan language recordings.

Taña Finnesand, Markle Pete, and Karen Linnell

Local language archives play several crucial roles in language revitalization efforts. First, they can serve as gateways to larger repositories, providing local access to documents and recordings which would not otherwise be easily accessible in the community. C'ek'aedi Hwnax has partnered with the Alaska Native Language Archive in Fairbanks to make available digital copies of all of the Ahtna recordings housed there. In this way CH helps to achieve a kind of digital repatriation, bringing back recordings which were originally made in the community. But as a local language archive C'ek'aedi Hwnax does more than just provide access to other collections, it also serves as a repository for local recordings, accepting deposits from community members. Because it is located within the community and run by the community, C'ek'aedi Hwnax can better honor and respect and implement access restrictions put on recordings by depositors. They can also work closely with depositors to enrich the the descriptive metadata, identifying speakers and stories and even assisting with translation.

What makes C'ek'aedi Hwnax unique is that it serves these local needs while also adhering to international standards in digital language archives. The staff at C'ek'aedi Hwnax have worked closely with linguist Andrea Berez to ensure that their archiving practices follow recognized archival procedures. These days anyone can digitize language recordings using off-the-shelf equipment, but it is another thing entirely to ensure that these recordings are preserved properly for access by future generations. The best way to do this is to collaborate with other digital archiving efforts for endangered languages; C'ek'aedi Hwnax will soon become the first local language archive in Alaska to join the Open Language Archives Community.

The C'ek'aedi Hwnax language archive is a model for local language archiving efforts elsewhere in Alaska and beyond. By supporting this effort the Ahtna Heritage Foundation has shown a real vision for the future of Native language in Alaska. The dedicated and professional staff deserves credit for turning this vision into a reality.

Tana Mae Pete demonstrates the digitizing station

C'ek'aedi Hwnax

New language technology featured at Barrow Elders and Youth Conference

2010-11-23T07:23:00.000-09:00

The Alaska Public Radio Network reports that a preliminary version of the RosettaStone language learning software was featured at the annual Elders and Youth Conference in Barrow last weekend. As I described in an earlier post, RosettaStone is a major developer of computerized language learning software. In 2007 RosettaStone worked with NANA to develop a version of its software for Inupiaq in the Kotzebue region. As described in an article in the Arctic Sounder last year, the Barrow project builds off that work to create a program tailored specifically for the North Slope dialect. Incredibly, this means that now three of the seven language varieties featured in the RosettaStone Endangered Language Program are actually dialects of the pan-arctic Inuit language. That makes Inuit a clear leader in the adoption of the RosettaStone approach.

RosettaStone products make use of a standardized template which present users with a screen containing four images from which the correct response must be chosen to an audio prompt. For example, presented with the phrase siku nigliñaqtuq (which the user might only hear , not see written), the user is expected to click on a picture which has something to do with this phrase. For example, a child holding a piece of ice (the phrase means 'the ice is cold'). Note that the user is not necessarily expected to know the precise meaning of the phrase or to be able to translate it. They just need to know enough to be able to recognize the appropriate image. In this way the software comes close to simulating actual language learning, in which the learner's understanding builds and improves over time.

One downside of this software is that it is not able to respond to the user. The interaction is one-way:
the computer speaks, the user clicks. Dedicated learners will benefit from repeating the sounds produced by the computer, but they are not able to engage in a conversation with the computer. (The software does allow a user to record their voice and compare the audio waveform to that of a Native speaker pronunciation.) Still, a dedicated learner will likely benefit greatly from active use of the software. Elders may grow weary of repeating words or sentences again and again, but the computer can repeat as long as the learner is willing to listen. As with any language learning situation, the more effort a learner puts in to using this software, the more rewards it will pay. This new software will be an important addition supporting Inupiaq language revitalization on the North Slope.

Listen to the full APRN report by Jane Neher here.

Inuit or Eskimo?

2010-11-08T11:59:00.000-09:00

For many years now Alaskans have continued to use the word Eskimo even though it is considered derogatory in arctic Canada and Greenland. The simple reason for this is that there are several different Eskimo languages spoken in Alaska, while in Canada and Greenland there is only one. While it is possible to identify many different dialects spoken in a chain extending from the Seward peninsula to eastern Greenland, those dialects all share a root inu- (or something very similar) meaning 'person'. This form is found in words like Inupiaq, Inuk, Inuktitut, and Inuit. This makes the inu- language--often referred to collectively as Inuit--very different from Alaskan languages such as Yugtun, Cup'ik, or Sugcestun, where the root for 'person' is yuk-, cuk-, and suk-, respectively. It also makes it hard to come up with an indigenous term to replace Eskimo to refer to all of these related languages as a group. In part for this reason the term Eskimo has persisted in Alaska, used not just by outsiders but also as a self-designation by some people.

But this may well be changing. A resolution passed recently by the Inuit Circumpolar Council calls for replacing the word Eskimo with Inuit. More precisely, the resolution states:

Let it therefore be resolved that

Organizations such as the Alaska Native Language Center are likely to adopt this new terminology, and Inuit rather than Eskimo will be used on the new Indigenous Peoples and Languages of Alaska Map. But it's not yet clear whether the term Inuit will be widely adopted by groups other than Inupiaq. The ICC has little representation in Alaska outside the Inupiaq language region. And yet, three other languages of the Eskimo family are spoken here, namely: Central Yup'ik, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, and Sugpiaq (Alutiiq). Two more -- Naukan and Sirenik -- are spoken nearby in Russia.

These six languages are descended from a common ancestor and thus form a language family, in the same way that the various languages descended from Latin -- French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. -- form a language family, known as Romance. Unfortunately we have no good term like "Romance" to replace the term "Eskimo" in reference to the language family. In his 1995 map Krauss uses the hyphenated term "Inuit-Yupik," and this may well be an acceptable solution. But the problem remains that Inuit does not mean the same thing as Eskimo.

In fact, some would claim that the two are entirely different. Rachel Qitsualik made exactly this point in an op-ed piece in Indian Country Today a few years ago. There she claims that Inuit is a term reserved for the second wave of human migration into the eastern Arctic, distinct from the earlier Dorset migration, whom she refers to as "Tunit." According to Qitsualik, these Inuit cannot be Eskimo; nor can the Eskimo be called Inuit. But Qitsualik ends her piece with a particularly important point:

"It all really boils down to choice, the right to accept or reject specific labels at will, the right to be known as one wishes to be. And is that not what liberty is all about?" I couldn't agree more. So Inuit or Eskimo? It depends on personal preference. And it's up to the rest of us to respect those preferences.

Na-Dene T-Shirt

2010-10-26T05:57:00.000-08:00

My favorite purchase from this year's AFN convention is this Na-Dene language map t-shirt, produced here in Fairbanks by Nomadic Stars.

AFN calls for creation of Alaska Native Languages Commission

2010-10-23T18:42:00.000-08:00

This morning the Alaska Federation of Natives passed a resolution calling for the creation of an Alaska Native Languages Commission.

The text of the resolution, provided by Tim Argetsinger, reads as follows:

TITLE: A Resolution Concerning Establishment of an Alaska Native Languages Commission by the Alaska Federation of Natives

Whereas, Alaska Native languages are inherently valuable and constitute vital sources of identity for Alaska Native peoples, reinforcing the cultural, geographic, and ethnic ties that make us unique; and

Whereas, Maintaining and nurturing our cultural identities in meaningful ways is paramount to the future survival of Alaska Native peoples as distinct societies within Alaska and the United States; and

Whereas, All Alaska Native languages are endangered or severely endangered and the tragic loss of Eyak in 2008 underscores the vulnerability of Alaska Native languages; and

Whereas, The continued erosion or disappearance of cultural identities has social and political implications for Alaska Native peoples; and

Whereas, Language revitalization is a social justice issue involving processes of psychological and spiritual healing, as well as processes of language re-acquisition, reclamation, and transmission; and

Whereas, Sustained statewide political advocacy, research and corpus on behalf of Alaska Native language revitalization efforts, financial resources, and greater cooperation between Alaska Native language stakeholders is urgently needed to initiate or maintain language revitalization initiatives in Alaska Native communities.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by delegates to the 2010 Elders and Youth Conference that we, as Alaska Native elders and youth, request that the Alaska Federation of Natives establish an Alaska Native Languages Commission in order to: politically advocate on behalf of Alaska Native languages, facilitate and promote greater cooperation between Alaska Native language stakeholders, conduct and share research and corpus concerning Alaska Native and· other indigenous languages, and to research the availability of and potentially provide financial resources for Alaska Native language revitalization efforts.

Voting in Alaska Native languages

2010-10-22T13:48:00.000-08:00

The State of Alaska, Division of Elections, even has a Glossary of Election Terms in Yup'ik (Cucukliryarami Aperyarat Nalqigutait), prepared by Dorie Wassillie, Oscar Alexie, Sophie Alexie, Frank, Chingliak, Lincoln Enoch, Alice Fredson, and Elsie Jimmie.

Learning Koyukon by video conference

2010-10-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

Language learning and language teaching take many forms. Linguist Susan Paskvan has been creating a space for Koyukon language using video conferencing. A story in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner describes Paskvan's efforts to link remote villages in the Yukon-Koyukuk school district so that elder speakers can share Athabaskan stories with children.

Bumper sticker against Native language?

2010-10-18T09:28:00.000-08:00

Just this morning I saw the following bumper sticker:

Okay, I'm all for the first part. Literacy has had some negative effects on Native languages, but that's mostly a side-effect of the way literacy has been implemented rather than an inherent problem with literacy itself. But the second part? Thank a soldier that we're reading this in English? Isn't that just about the same as thanking a soldier that we are NOT reading this in a Native language? I guess in some sense it IS ultimately soldiers who are responsible for the demise of Native language in Alaska.

ANA Grants Awarded

2010-10-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

The Administration for Native Americans just announced new awards for Language Preservation and Maintenance. THree of the 23 awards were made to Alaska Native organizations:

Ketchikan Indian Corporation
Reversing Language Shift in Southern Southeast Alaska: Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian
Providing a foundation for continued language preservation efforts by developing Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian language curriculum specific to adult language learners in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Organized Village of Kake
Kake Lingit Language Assessment and Documentation Project
Strengthening the foundation for continuing Lingit language preservation efforts by assessing the current status of the language and creating media archives that document Elder conversations and informal language lesson plans.

Telida Village Council
Dinak'i Athabascan (Upper Kuskokwim River) Language Preservation and Revitalization Project
Developing interactive multimedia resources for a new website to provide interesting and culturally appropriate language learning opportunities.

Surviving Sounds of Haida

2010-10-13T08:59:00.002-08:00

Just found this nice video about the last speakers of Haida. The video, produced by the Kasaan Haida Heritage Foundation in 2007, features Haida speakers Erma Lawrence and Harriet McAllister, among others.

Alutiiq on iPhone, iPad

2010-10-09T08:29:00.000-08:00

According a story in the Kodiak Daily Mirror, the Native Village of Afognak has produced several sets of Alutiiq flashcards for use on mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad. The Flashcards display Alutiiq words and phrases in three categories: commands, weather, meet & greet. Each card contains a written Alutiiq phrase; tapping an icon plays a recording of the phrase. Tapping below the phrase displays the English translation. Users can monitor their progress in memorizing phrases; less known cards cycle back around to give the learner additional practice.

While the Alutiiq Flashcard sets are freely available, they require the gFlash App, which must be purchased for $4.99. At first glance, this seems to be a limitation. However, relying on the gFlash App allows the language developers to separate software from content, focusing on the latter. Once the gFlash App is downloaded and installed, users have unlimited capability to edit and expand the flashcard sets. This can be done right in the App itself or remotely using GoogleDocs. Audio files and images can be added by simply posting them to a website and then typing in the relevant link. And the developers can easily add new card sets without needing to update the App. Finally, all content is downloaded to the device, so an internet connection is not required in order to use the flashcards.

Clearly mobile Apps such as this are not sufficient to revitalize a language, but they can be important tools for language learning. While modern approaches to language learning have tended to emphasize interaction and communicative context, the role of memorization in language learning cannot be denied. The Alutiiq gFlash App brings the time-honored tradition of using flashcards for language study into the modern world.

edit cards right in the App!

More on Native language in the Alaska senate race

2010-10-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

Following Lisa Murkowski's reference to the Aleut language, opposing candidate Scott McAdams includes support for Native language on his campaign website. Specifically, he claims that while serving on the National Asscotiation of School Boards he "helped convince the organization to support Alaska Native language instruction." Now we just need to figure out what form that support takes.

Murkowski refers to Aleut language

2010-09-18T15:21:00.004-08:00

As reported in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, senator Lisa Murkowski refers to the Aleut language in explaining her decision to continue her re-election bid as a write-in candidate. Specifically, Lisa claims that there is no word for "impossible" in Aleut. Unfortunately, Murkowski's research falls short.

A quick look at the Aleut Dictionary* reveals the following entry on p. 88:

haangina-lix

Seems like it couldn't be any clearer: Aleut DOES have a word for "impossible." Just what this means for Murkowski's campaign remains to be seen, but perpetuating myths about the lexical deficiencies of Native languages seems no way to start.

*Bergsland, Knut. 1994. Aleut Dictionary. Unangam Tunudgussi. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center. [order]

ANLC Faculty Member Defends PhD Thesis

2010-09-15T07:23:00.006-08:00

On September 13th ANLC faculty member Walkie Charles defended his University of Alaska Fairbanks PhD dissertation entitled Dynamic Assessment in a Yugtun L2 Intermediate Adult Classroom. The defense was attended by a standing-room-only crowd of more than 50 people. Charles became the second student in the Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education (SLATE) program to complete a doctoral degree.

Charles' work examines the role of mediation in language teaching, providing insights on how to improve Yup'ik language instruction for a new generation of language learners. Though focused on classroom instruction at UAF, the thesis clearly has implications for instruction in other Native languages and in other teaching and learning contexts.

Walkie currently teaches Yup'ik language at UAF and is the author of many publications about Yup'ik language instruction, including "Qaneryaramta Egmiucia: Continuing Our Language" in the March 2005 issue of Anthropology & Education Quarterly.