Digital Drum - Aboriginal Cultural Expression

With the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network designed a sophisticated Website last year to allow people to showcase their traditional storytelling, community traditions, music and other cultural activities.

Supported through the efforts of Executive Producer Wayne Clark, Producer Philip Djwa and a host of other talented people, the Digital Drum Website provides an interface for people to upload videos and post other multimedia content and hyperlinks.

For example, see Qallunajatut Urban part 2 to listen to watch Inuit traditional skills with an Inuit explanation and English transcript. Playing Eastern Tide: Mildred Milliea part 1, part 2 and part 3 tell the story of Mi’kmaq Native Dr. Milliea who has dedicated her life to preserving Mi’kmaq (mic). Explore these and other cultural adventures at Digital Drum.

Alaska Languages - Continuing Award for Collaboration

Last September, the NSF awarded the University of Alaska Fairbanks just over US$450,000, with Michael Krauss as principal investigator, to study 11 endangered languages in Alaska.

The languages to be studied (with Wikipedia and Ethnologue links) are: Han Athabascan (haa), Upper Kuskokwim Athabascan (kuu), Eyak (eya), Tlingit (tli), Southern Tsimshian (tsi), North Slope Inupiaq (esi), Central Alaskan Yup’ik (esu), Central Siberian Yupik (ess), Alutiiq (ems), Attuan Aleut (ale) and Kodiak Russian Creole, a language of approximately five speakers whose average age is 90 and apparently without a page on either Wikipedia or Ethnologue.

Krauss is joined by a host of prominent language researchers. Their names as well as other details of the award are detailed at “IPY - Documenting Alaskan and Neighboring Languages” as well as Veco Polar (second listing).

This blog entry was prompted by a Tundra Drums article and an EurekAlert article. The amount listed in those articles $1.2 million, and the Talking Alaska blog lists it at $1.4 million. The grant is a continuing grant, so the disparity in numbers probably reflects the way the calculation was made. (The NSF site lists three awards, totaling $1.06 million.)

To keep up with Alaskan and other endangered language issues, subscribe to  Gary Holton’s Talking Alaska blog. An article on Michael Krauss is available on Wikipedia.

Northwest Journal of Linguistics - open, online and peer-reviewed

The NWJL is an online journal focusing on indigenous languages of northwestern North America, providing peer-reviewed articles and open access. Designated as one of five hotspots in the world for language endangerment, the northwestern North America region will benefit from the exposure its languages receive in the Journal.

Started last year, the NWJL has a full editorial board including general editors Donna Gerdts, Timothy Montler and William Poser. With four issues in 2007, the Journal has handled prosodic hierarchy in Lushootseed (lut), verbal morphology in Santiam Kalapuya (kyl) and the resultive construction as well as stress in SENĆOŦEN (Saanich (str)).

Submitting authors retain the rights to their works, and they are encouraged to include diagrams and media such as sound files, taking advantage of the online format. The Journal is supported by Simon Fraser University.

Eyak Falls Silent

With the passing of Chief Marie Smith Jones on January 21, Eyak (eya) lost its last native speaker. Spoken in south-central Alaska, Eyak is its own branch of the Athabascan-Eyak language family, comprising about 20 Native languages in Alaska. She had worked extensively with Michael Krauss, a professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and founder/long-time director of the Alaska Native Language Center.

More about the family tree of Eyak can be found at Alaska Native Languages, which provides detailed information about Alaska language relationships. Eyak stories and recordings are available through the ANLC. Documentation including a glossary in extensive PDF files can be downloaded from Alaska Native Languages — Eyak.

News of Chief Jones’s passing was carried in BBC News, Alaska Public Radio Network, and WTOP News, among others, which provided much of the information for this blog entry.

Note about Krauss’s Native Peoples and Languages of Alaska map: In Talking Alaska, Gary Holton details how the Alaska language map (also found at Wikipedia) needs to be revised due to pejorative names and geographical problems.

Student job

Emily Bender at the University of Washington (Seattle) is looking for a student to help out with some research on Native American languages. Fluency is not required. Students need to have at least one year of study in a Native American language. A visit or two is required for orientation, but the work does not need to be performed at the UW. This is a paying position. Click on her link above to contact her for more information.