The
Qik'rtarmiut Alutiit (Alutiiq People of the Island) language program
is dedicated to documenting and revitalizing the Alutiiq Language of
the Kodiak Archipelago.
April with Alutiiq Language Masters
Recording Alutiiq Songs
Fluent speakers work with
Alutiiq language learners and other professionals to study the
language, make recordings for the Museum's Alutiiq language archive,
and create learning materials for all ages. The
Qik'rtarmiut Alutiit Regional Language Advisory Committee meets
bimonthly to guide language program efforts. This committe
includes Native corporation and tribal representatives,
educational organizations, and interested individuals. Our current projects include -
Alutiiq Living Words - a three year initiative dcoumenting Alutiiq speach, vocabulary and cultural traditions with the help of Alutiiq speakers, and create an Alutiiq Language Web Portal. With funding from the National Science Foundation.
The Alutiiq Living Words Project
With funding from the National Science Foundation's Documenting Endangered Languages program, the Alutiiq Museum is recording the Alutiiq language in an extensive project designed to increase knowledge of Alutiiq. The Alutiiq Living Words project involves fluent Kodiak Elders, semi-fluent second language speakers, and other interested community members. The project began in the summer of 2007 and will run through the summer of 2010. It has three central objectives,
Elder Mary Peterson
Field Research
Semi-fluent field researchers are working with Elders to document the Alutiiq language and cultural knowledge through digital audio and video recordings in Alutiiq. These recordings will be indexed and archived for long term preservation. Stored on archival-quality CDs and DVDs, invaluable cultural and linguistic knowledge will be preserved for future community members and language learners.
Web Portal
Selected audio and video clips from our field research will be transcribed and translated, and made available on the internet through an Alutiiq Language Web Portal beginning in 2009. Selections with highlight community traditions, subsistence practices, and local histories will be posted in a format searchable by speaker, village, sub-dialect, and key word. The web portal will also feature an interactive place names map and biographies of fluent Alutiiq speakers.
New Words Council at Work
New Words Council
To help the Alutiiq language grow with the times, Elders from around Kodiak meet monthly to develop new words. Terms like "computer" "elevator" and "linguist" are being created by fluent speakers with the assistance of semi-fluent associate members. Approved words will be published at the end of the project, and posted on the Alutiiq Language Web Portal. This process is being documented for the benefit of other threatened language groups around the world.
To
find out more about the Alutiiq Living Words Project, to learn about the materials and opportunities available for studying Alutiiq, or to participate in saving our language, please
contact
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
at the Alutiiq Museum at (907) 486-7003.
How do you say computer, or email in Alutiiq? A few years ago, this question would have been difficult for an Alutiiq speaker, because there were no Alutiiq words for these items. This situation is slowly changing due to the hard work of a dedicated council of Elders, including Nick Alokli, Florence Pestrikoff, Mary Haakanson, Paul Kahutak, Irene Coyle, Fred Coyle, Dennis Knagin, Sophie Katelnikoff Shepherd, Phyllis Peterson, Kathryn Chichenoff, Marty Peterson, and Martha Rozelle. The Nuta’at Niugnelistat (New Word Makers) have been meeting monthly for nearly a year as part of a project funded by a National Science Foundation Documenting Endangered Languages grant.
Alutiiq ledgend says that the moon is a man who wears a different mask every night.
Stories teach. From Aesop’s fables to Peter
Pan, stories preserve and share information. This fall, Kodiak High School
students will tell two stories. One group will work with Alutiiq artist Lena
Amason and art teacher Bonnie Dillard to create illustrations for a short
animated version of the Alutiiq legend The
Girl Who Married the Moon.
Another group will work with technology teacher Matt Bieber to create a
documentary of the artistic process. Both stories will reveal the students’
deepening connection to Alutiiq heritage.
Supported by a grant from the First Nations
Development Institute, the PatRiitat
P’tasqat (Motion Pictures) project will promote artistic development around
the exploration of Alutiiq culture while creating resources for cultural
education; an animated film to teach Alutiiq vocabulary and a documentary film
that illustrates the value of heritage education.
Within months, the Alutiiq Museum will launch a new online language learning tool, making the sights & sounds of Alutiiq as close as the nearest computer. Through the Alutiiq Language Web Portal audio and video recordings of Alutiiq speakers from around Kodiak Island will be featured in an electronic archive. Visitors will be able to search the recording by speaker, sub-dialect, villages, and key words and to view both Alutiiq and English captions. Other portal features will include an interactive place names map, a list of language learning resources, and a selection of newly coined Alutiiq words adopted by the New Words Council. A draft version of the portal is nearing completion and will soon be available for public review.
Alutiiq Language 
