Eyak Language

Honorary Eyak Chief Marie Smith Jones was the last full-blooded Native speaker of the Eyak language. She passed away at 89 in January of 2008. LINK TO FILM

The loss of our Native speakers signals the loss of a culture and way of life. Now the only living fluent speaker is Dr. Michael Krauss, a University of Alaska linguist, anthropologist, and professor emeritus who taught himself the language through interviews conducted with Eyak people from the 50’s through to Marie’s passing.

In 2001, EPC received a 3-year support grant from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) to preserve the Eyak language. Working closely with Dr. Krauss and Eyak enthusiast, professional journalist, and videographer Laura Bliss Spaan, EPC successfully completed this critical preservation phase of the Eyak language. Through the ANA grant, we scanned ALL the collected documents of Dr. Krauss and Frederica De Laguna – all that is known about the Eyak culture and their language. This comprised over 30,000 pages of field notes, books and writings from all over the world. Over 28 audio and videotapes were professionally produced and have been archived. These included Eyak oral history, Dr. Krauss and Marie speaking Eyak, and tutorial lessons on how to use the Eyak dictionary. Also included is discussion on the peculiarities of the mysterious Eyak-Athabascan language. A digital Eyak “font” was produced that includes “Eyak” characters for the sounds that are outside of our English language. Not only is all of this work now archived and safely on several hard drives, this phase produced an edited 5-DVD set with accompanying text illustrating how to use the DVDs and the Eyak language dictionary. Also included is a word and phrase handwritten “phrasebook” that includes regional place names in Eyak. This has been collected for presentation in 3-ring binder format.

We are now moving forward in this program and are planning to make the Eyak 5-DVD set and the accompanying text available for all that want to learn about the Eyak people and their language. Support for our Eyak Language program will go directly for this important work.