Alaska is in danger of losing native languages such as those in the Inuit-Yupik-Unanga family spoken by this family of an Inupiat Eskimo mother, father and son photographed in 1929 by Edward S. Curtis.
JUNEAU, Alaska-In late September, then-Governor Bill Walker issued Administrative Order 300, formally acknowledging the emergency faced by Alaska's Native languages, supporting their revitalization and improving government-to-government relationships between Alaska's state and tribal governments.
"This order focuses on concrete ways Alaska can show leadership to support its first people and their languages-one of our richest and most at-risk resources," Walker said. "It's our responsibility to acknowledge government's historical role in the suppression of Indigenous languages and our honor to move into a new era by supporting their revitalization."
The Department of Education and Early Development will collaborate with the Alaska Native Language Preservation Advisory Council (ANLPAC), the University of Alaska, state agencies and other stakeholders to integrate Alaska Native languages into public schools and universities. As they create and update public signs, all state departments will begin the process of implementing bilingual signage that recognizes Indigenous place names, including street and marine highway signs.
To facilitate better collaboration between state government and Alaska Native Tribes and communities, the order also asks each of Alaska's agencies to work to develop a plan for meaningful government-to-government consultation with tribes and participate in the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) endeavor led by First Alaskans. The commissioner of each department will designate a tribal liaison to help develop and implement those plans.
The order follows the 2018 ANLPAC Biennial Report, which recognized a linguistic emergency for Alaska's 20 native languages. The mainstream movement to preserve dwindling languages began in the 1960s. Alaska became the 49th U.S. state in 1959. Native languages were traditionally not written down but are now being hurriedly recorded and archived.
Most of the 20 languages belong to one of two large language families, known as Inuit-Yupik-Unanga, or Eskimo-Aleut, and Athabaskan-Eyak-Tinglit. Of the Alaska Native languages addressed by the order, one has already lost its last native speaker.
The last fluent speaker of Eyak died 10 years ago, according to the Native language preservation council.
