Helper Neck

[Richard LaFortune]

"There are also significant numbers of items relating
to the development of orthography and literacy in
Central Alaskan Yup’ik, including early works relating
to Helper Neck’s independent orthography (late 19th
century), as well as the more recent efforts to create
a standard orthography (1960s). "
http://www.alaska.edu/uaf/anlc/cayupik/

The first speakers and translators mentioned in the
article are all my family as well- Mary Gregory, etc;
and my (adoptive) family represented hemispheric
denominational leadership in the delta Moravian
missions from the 1950s and up to 1962.  Our family
used to spend the summers with (Rev) Kurt Vitt and the
Henklemens in Canada and Alaska in the 60s.  My dad's
relative Bellarmine LaFortune is also considered the
most famous missionary in Alaskan state history- I've
got a decent biography of the man on my bookshelf,
written by the Jesuits (Lafortune was SJ) and funded
by Alaska Humanities.

I had the people at American Philosophical Society
Collection in Philadelphia help me look through a
bunch of the early Moravian language cataloguing at
the  about 10 years ago- primarily Deleware, etc,
documented by Heckewelder I believe.
Anguksuar

--- Richard LaFortune <anguksuar at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> Helper Neck is the Yupik holy man who developed the
> less well known modern North American Indigenous
> non-Roman orthography this past century, following
> Sequoia's.  My first cousin Sophie and one of the
> other folks  (I forget which) who worked on our
> dictionary was able to finally interpret the writing
> system he developed.   Sophie worked with Mike
> Krauss
> at Alaska Native Language Center  The court's
> decision
> is not reasonably informed and most certainly
> culturally biased.  These are a couple of my
> relatives
> who pressed the action- my family are Nicks and
> Andrewses.
> Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune)
> 
> --- Susan Penfield <susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> > Thanks for this -- the context does help. However,
> > the notion of
> > 'historically unwritten" is still troubling to me.
> > Hasn't Yup'ik been written use since the late
> > 1800's? ( I'm told that is
> > when the church-based orthography
> > came into use).
> > 
> > S.
> > 
> > On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 1:32 AM, William J Poser
> > <wjposer at ldc.upenn.edu>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > I have posted my thoughts on the ruling, with
> > links to the ruling
> > > and other documents, on Language Log:
> > > http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=396
> > >
> > > In context I don't think that the ruling is as
> > outrageous as it
> > > sounds.
> > >
> > > Bill
> > >
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> >
>
____________________________________________________________
> > Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.
> > 
> > Department of English (Primary)
> > American Indian Language Development Institute
> > (AILDI)
> > Second Language Acquisition & Teaching Ph.D.
> Program
> > (SLAT)
> > Department of Language,Reading and Culture(LRC)
> > Department of Linguistics
> > The Southwest Center (Research)
> > Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836
> > 
> > 
> > "Every language is an old-growth forest of the
> mind,
> > a watershed of thought,
> > an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities."
> > 
> > Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...)