Linguapax
More about the Alutiiq Language Program
BY ELISABETH DUNHAM
The nationally funded Alutiiq Language Program on Kodiak Island began documenting the area's native language about four years ago.
As part of the program, fluent elders and "semi-fluent" speakers are brought in to speak the language while staff members make digital and audio recordings. Elders also are helping to develop new words in the Sugpiaq language for modern things such as "computer," "cellphone" and "elevator"
Additionally, about 12 adult tribe members have gone through a "master apprentice" program to learn the language directly from a handful of elders, but only about five of them are fluent enough to teach the program, says April Counceller, manager of the language program.
"A lot of people say, 'Oh, it's so difficult to learn,' but I don't think it is," says Counceller, who holds a doctorate in language planning and indigenous knowledge systems from the University of Alaska and is probably the most fluent of the second generation "adult learners" in the tribe. "There are sounds that are unfamiliar to English speakers, but that's true of all foreign languages. English is actually harder to learn. Alutiiq is just a highly elaborate system that is different from English but is not more difficult to learn."
While numerous tribe members have expressed interest in learning the language, coming up with enough elders and adult learners to teach everybody has proved difficult. Counceller sometimes teaches classes to elementary and high school students in rural school districts via video conference.
Because the best teachers are the elders themselves, time is of the essence.
"The average age of the elders is 79 and their average life span is 69, so we are already living on borrowed time," Counceller says. "I don't know what's going to happen in the coming months, but saving a language from a recording is by far the least desirable way to save a language."
http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2011/04/more_about_the_alutiiq_languag.html