[lg policy] Alaska:

[Harold Schiffman]

Senate hears strong support for Native language council
by FDNMstaff
 The Politics Cache
Jan 31, 2012 |

— Posted by Matt Buxton, staff reporter

Most of the 2012 legislative session has focused on securing Alaska’s
future — through oil tax reform, natural gas and better education —
but on Tuesday the Senate State Affairs Committee heard testimony on
preserving part of Alaska’s heritage — Alaska Native languages.
During testimony for a measure that would established the Alaska
Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council many experts and
Native advocates told the Senate that Alaska Native languages — a
bastion of Native culture and identity — are at risk of going extinct
and need protection.

The measure, proposed by Democratic Nome Sen. Donald Olson, would
create a council that would assess the state’s language policy and
programs and look for ways to create new programs to protect and
promote Native languages. “It is felt throughout the indigenous tribes
statewide that Alaska Native languages are threatened by extinction,”
an aide to Olson told the committee. “The intent of SB 130 is to
preserve, maintain and restore Alaska Native languages.”

And many of the experts providing testimony said that after years of
decline at the hands of modernization and unfriendly policies and
social pressure, Native languages are at the brink of disappearing.
The language council, they said, would not only preserve the language,
but what the languages represent culturally. Fairbanks resident Joy
Huntington spoke in favor the council, saying that it represents a
significant part of Alaska Native culture.

“Here in the Interior we fully support SB 130,” she said. “Our
languages are struggling, this is a similar crisis situation to a
flood or a fire ... I personally do't speak my own language and that's
a crisis in my own mind.” The University of Alaska Fairbanks is home
to the Alaska Native Language Center, which focuses on studying and
preserving Native languages, and its director, Dr. Lawrence Kaplan,
shared his thoughts on what the council could do for the culture. “It
could give an official voice to Alaska Native languages within the
government,” he said.

Kaplan added the center and the council could work hand-in-hand to
study and advocate for the protection of Native languages, which he
sees as in danger of disappearing.

“The Alaska Native languages are severely endangered with decreasing
numbers of speakers most of whom are very elderly,” he said. “It is
appropriate and necessary for the state to address this situation.”

Throughout the morning’s testimony, multiple people brought up Eyak, a
Native language that went extinct when Marie Smith Jones, the last
speaker of Eyak, passed away in 2008.

Sealaska Heritage Institute Director Dr. Rosita Worl said the council
would be integral to ensuring the future of Alaska Native languages,
but that immediate action’s needed.

“Unless remedial action is initiated most of all Alaska Native
languages will join their already extinct linguistic relative, Eyak,
within a few decades,” she said.

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - entry Senate hears strong
support for Native language council


http://newsminer.com/pages/full_story/push?blog-entry-Senate+hears+strong+support+for+Native+language+council%20&id=17354131&instance=blogs_editors_desk

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