Alaska Native Language Center linguist helps document dialects (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Alaska Native Language Center linguist helps document dialects

by Christopher Eshleman/ceshleman at newsminer.com
USA

FAIRBANKS — Village elders have worked with researchers for years to
document the slate of native languages found across the state.

Many of those languages, including Lower Tanana, are extremely endangered.
Only a handful of native speakers of Lower Tanana, often referred to as
Tanana, are still alive. Different dialects of the language, one of 11 in
the Alaska Athabascan family, were originally spoken across the Chena River
drainage, from Minto and Nenana east toward Salcha, the Goodpaster River and
Big Delta.

Native speakers — who grew up with Lower Tanana as their first language —
can only be found in Minto. Siri Tuttle, a linguist at the Alaska Native
Language Center and the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ linguistics program,
recently wrapped up a 15-month documentation and research project in the
village of about 250 people. She worked with elders to translate and
document song lyrics, some on file at the language center and some recorded
during the project.


Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Alaska Native Language Center
linguist helps document dialects
http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/9503554/article-Alaska-Native-Language-Center-linguist-helps-document-dialects?instance=home_news_window_left_top_4
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