Kodiak Natives record album in effort to preserve language (fwd)

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Kodiak Natives record album in effort to preserve language

An estimated 100 original speakers of Alutiiq remain

KODIAK - Enthusiasm and humor were contagious as Susan Malutin and
Teresa Clark donned headphones and took a second turn at a pair of
microphones in the main gallery of Kodiak's Alutiiq Museum.

The women had just finished a carefully annunciated version of
"Miktengcusqaq miskiiRaq" an Alutiiq translation of the children's song
"Itsy Bitsy Spider."

"Good," producer Stephen Blanchett said. "Now give me a silly one."

Blanchett had previously recorded a group chorus. Now he was listening
for, and capturing, individual voices for the songs final mix. He
tapped a computer keyboard on the table in front of him. One of the
sliding controls on the sound mixing board patched to the computer
moved as if an invisible hand touched it.

"OK, for real this time."

"For real?" Clark asked.

"For real. Just be silly. This one is for the kids."

Malutin and Clark went through the next take with high-pitched girlish
voices. All around the room cheeks swelled. Dimples revealed
themselves, and women covered their mouths to prevent giggles from
reaching Blanchetts microphones.

By the time they got to the words "paipaq mayunqiiskii," ("the pipe it
climbed up again") everyone was cracking up.

As lighthearted and downright goofy as the scene seemed when it took
place last week, it's also part of a weightier, more important story.

The Sugpiaq people, Natives of Kodiak, are working hard on several
fronts to preserve their language. Alutiiq is likely spoken by fewer
than 100 people in Alaska. Alutiiq Museum Director Sven Haakanson Jr.,
a Harvard-trained anthropologist who is also Sugpiak, estimates that
between 35 and 50 original speakers live on Kodiak Island today.

"Were fighting a falling tide on this one. The language is disappearing
and if we don't do something about it - if we don't do something about
it now - its going to disappear," Haakanson said.

A children's song that's fun to sing and includes words for "rain,"
"spider" and "up" can help. It can likely help in a way that a picture
book, and almost certainly a dictionary, can't.

Over five days last week, Sugpiaq singers with ties to every community
on Kodiak Island came together to record songs. Not just children's
songs, but also Christian hymns sung in Alutiiq and Slavonic, and other
songs native to Kodiak.

A CD from the sessions will be available for sale later in the year, and
museum workers say demand from visitors already exists.

For Malutin, a second-year student in an Alutiiq language preservation
program, the recording sessions have already been an important event.

"The best thing was to have so many of our Elders here together in one
place at the same time," Malutin said.

"From 10 to 5 every day, and that's a really big commitment for some of
them."

Clyda Christensen, 86, is one of the Elders who made time to share songs
and her knowledge of the language. Elders sang, and also rehearsed with
younger singers, coaching their pronunciation.

Christensen grew up in Karluk and remembers when the town had seven
canneries operating during the summer and hundreds of residents.

Karluk had 27 residents in 2005, according to census data. More
recently, Karluk residents said about 40 people live there.

"There was about 300 people (in Karluk) when I was growing up. My dad,
he was from Sweden, and he used to say there was about 500 people there
when he met my mom," Christensen said.

She grew up speaking English in school and with her father and Alutiiq
with her mom. As a little girl she would listen to house guests speak
Alutiiq with her mother over tea.

Christensen, like many people her age, refers to the Alutiiq language as
"Aleut." She recognizes which island village a speaker is from by their
accent.

"They called us the North-enders. Our language is the same as Old Harbor
and Akhiok, but the dialect is a little different," she said.

"When we would all sing together, it was sometimes hard for us to follow
them. They sing a little different - but the same songs."
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