On the notion of "last speaker" and the fate of Holikachuk

A few years ago I described the passing of Marie Smith, last speaker of the Eyak language, as ushering in a new era for Alaska Native languages. But I also noted that Eyak is in some sense unique among Alaskan languages in having made such a clean break between speakers and non-speakers. For most Alaskan languages the interface between speakers and non-speakers is not so clear.

The passing of Wilson ("Tiny") Deacon last month (March 17) marks a milestone for Holikachuk, an Athabaskan language spoken originally in the Innoko River area of western Alaska. Tiny was by all accounts a champion of Holikachuk language and culture, a traditionalist who took great pride in Holikachuk history and enjoyed talking about it. His passing is a great loss to the Holikachuk language. But it is not the end. So I was rather shocked to see the following headline in yesterday's Indian Country Today:

"Alaska Native Language Loses Last Fluent Speaker"

By all accounts Deacon was extremely knowledgeable of traditional Holikachuck lifeways and language. With his passing we lost an important culture bearer, someone with a real passion for the language. Anyone can be a speaker, but not everyone has that passion. On the other hand people often develop that passion later in life. I've seen this repeatedly in language workshops and culture camps. People who were never known to be particularly fluent turn out to have an amazing knowledge of the language. Sometimes it takes just the right circumstances to bring out that inner poet in us all.

About a decade ago the linguist Nick Evans wrote a paper entitled The last speaker is dead. Long live the last speaker! Evans was reflecting on his many years working with endangered Australian Aboriginal languages, in situations not unlike those found in Alaska. Sometimes the passing of one well-known speaker can make room for other less well-known speakers to step forward. Just when you are tempted to say that the last speaker has passed, someone else turns up with knowledge of the language.

Tracking speakers of Holikachuk can be particularly difficult. Prior to 1962 the Holikachuk culture was traditionally centered on the Innoko River, but beginning in that year the Innoko River village Holikachuk was abandoned and most speakers moved to the Yukon River village of Grayling. That's where Tiny Deacon lived. (Linguist Michael Krauss, who worked with the language in 1961, says that if he had just come one year later he would have called the language Innoko instead of Holikachuk.) The move to Grayling put Holikachuk speakers in even closer contact with the Deg Xinag language. Though Holikachuk is linguistically much more similar to Koyukon, social ties bind the language to Deg Xinag, and many speakers of Deg Xinag learned Holikachuk as a second language.

But not everyone from Holikachuk moved to Grayling. For example, some ended up in Cantwell, where Holikachuk speakers can still be found today. I don't know what other villages may have welcomed the Holikachuk diaspora, but there are likely to be speakers scattered about in other places as well, in addition to Anchorage. Whether these speakers would count as "fluent" in the sense of the headline above I can't say. But that's what bothers me about the headline. It implies that all these other speakers must somehow be not fluent or at least less fluent. That's not to take anything away from Tiny Deacon. His will certainly be big shoes to fill, in spite of his nickname. But let's at least give people a chance. We may find that these other speakers still have much to teach us about Holikachuk language and culture.