Arctic Field Projects
Project Title: CAREER: Aleut Linguistics, Language Teaching, and Program Development (Award# 0349368)
PI: Berge, Anna (ffamb@uaf.edu)
Phone: (907) 474.5351
Institute/Department: U of Alaska, Fairbanks,
IPY Project? NO
Funding Agency: US\Federal\NSF\OD\OPP\ARC\ASSP
Program Manager: Dr. Anna Kerttula (akerttul@nsf.gov)
Discipline(s): | Social and Human Sciences\Linguistics |
| Project Web Site(s): |
| NSF_Award_Info: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0349... |
Science Summary:
The proposed CAREER research project, "CAREER: Aleut Linguistics, Language Teaching, and Program Development," by Dr. Anna Berge of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, outlines a five year integrated research and education project to support fieldwork on the Aleut language to document its modern form, the creation of adult language learning materials, and development of a specialization in Alaska Native Languages within the Applied Linguistics MA program at the University of Alaska. This is an extraordinary opportunity to advance the career of a young woman both in research and education, as well as support an indigenous communities self identified need of language revitalization.
Logistics Summary:
This CAREER project will support fieldwork to document the modern Aleut language. Over the course of 4 seasons, researchers will visit communities in the Aleutians, the Pribilofs, as well as the last Russian community where the Aleut language is spoken. During those visits the researchers will collect natural language recordings of non-narrative texts. All logistics will be arranged by the researchers through the grant.
All costs associated with this project will be paid by the PI through the grant.
| Season | Field Site | Date In | Date Out | #People |
| 2005 | Alaska - Nikolski | 06 / 01 / 2005 | 06 / 30 / 2005 | 1 |
| 2005 | Alaska - Unalaska | 05 / 01 / 2005 | 05 / 31 / 2005 | 1 |
| 2006 | Alaska - St. George Island | 1 | ||
| 2006 | Alaska - St. Paul Island | 1 | ||
| 2007 | Alaska - Atka | 1 | ||
| 2007 | Russia - Bering Island | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Atka | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - St. Paul Island | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Unalaska | 1 |
Project Title: IPY-Documenting Alaskan and Neighboring Languages (Award# 0732787)
PI: Krauss, Michael E (ffmek@uaf.edu)
Phone: (907) 479.6340
Institute/Department: U of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska Native Language Center
IPY Project? YES
Funding Agency: US\Federal\NSF\OD\OPP\ARC\ASSP
Program Manager: Dr. Anna Kerttula (akerttul@nsf.gov)
Discipline(s): | Social and Human Sciences |
| Project Web Site(s): |
| Data: http://www.alaska.edu/uaf/anlc/ |
| NSF_Award_Info: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0732... |
Science Summary:
This project aims to advance knowledge concerning indigenous languages in Alaska or neighboring to Alaska. There will be fieldwork, recording and documentation of these languages, including the preparation of dictionaries, grammars, and the creation of databases, in accordance with “best practices.” The languages belong to four families: Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit, Tsimshianic, Eskimo-Aleut, and Indo-European (Kodiak Russian Creole. One language, Eyak, extinct as of January 2008; Southern Tsimshian, has one speaker, age 94; Atuuan Aleut, one speaker-age 80 years; Kodiak Russian Creole perhaps 5 speakers, average age 90; Han Athabaskan, with perhaps 9 speakers, youngest about 60 years old. Other languages to be documented include: Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan, Northern Alaskan Inupiaq, Central Alaskan Yupik, Central Siberian Yupik, Alutiiq, and Tlingit. With the sole exception of Central Alaskan Yupik, the languages are either moribund or extinct. Extremely important data sources include; the Emel’ianova slipfiles located in St. Petersburg, Russia to be transliterated and processed for the Central Siberian Yup’ik lexicon work. No documentation of the Kodiak Russian Creole yet exists, it remains unclear how far it diverges from Ninilchik or Kenai Russian Creole; spoken on Afognak Strait until the earthquake and tsunami of 1964. The Atuuan Aleut is recorded on 12 phonograph cylinders of text recorded in 1909 by Jochelson which still needs to be transcribed. Seven of these cylinders contain chanted recordings, the only instance of such attested in this part of the world. Evgenii Golovko will work with Moses Dirks and John Golodoff, raised on Attu 1927-1942, to transcribe these. The Alaska-Yukon Border Athabaskan research by John Ritter will provide an account of especially complex tone movement or assimilation in this area that is necessary for text orthography and pedagogy. IPY 2007-2008 Themes Theme 1: Present Human Status of the Polar Region Theme 2: The Human Dimension in the Polar Region This project documents the present state of languages in Alaska and/or neighboring to Alaska, and how these vary regionally and in numbers of speakers. These variances may be due to educational policies such as “No Child Left Behind,” and other non-native intrusions. This project investigates a crucial facet of the polar region’s human dimension – language. There will dictionaries or grammars published of all the languages researched. This work will ultimately lead to the creation of datasets that will be freely available and user-friendly, allowing for data sharing nationally and internationally, an inherent goal of IPY 2007-2008. Education/Outreach and Communication IPY 2007-2008’s focus is to promote arctic research as knowledge that is integral to the understanding of changes we are observing worldwide. To this end, our language project strives to make connections with all groups of knowledge stakeholders: local community members, children, students, as well as researchers. A most important goal of this language documentation will be the curricula for native language study that will be developed, and most hopefully, be used to teach the local children and adults their own language. In addition, this research will be used to develop a fundamental study of the cultures and languages of the northern part of the work that people from other parts of the world can study and realize global connection. This research work will also provide a channel for community people living in the polar region to interact with the polar science community on research, especially in the Arctic. The principal investigator, Michael Krauss, as well as the other collaborators on the project, have a long history of commitment to Alaska Native language projects. Most important to these language projects have been the native language speakers; all have worked many years with these researchers and have long established relationships with them. These local people have shared knowledge of their community, culture and language. It must be stressed that in every case, investigators meet with appropriate leaders of Native corporations and communities and inform them about the project. These meetings with village councils identify other potential adult participants and contacts with local schools to develop student-related involvement. The investigators contact post-secondary institutions around Alaska to identify interested Alaska Native students and work with them to develop internships or other appropriate forms of participation tailored to their talents and interests. Once the forms of collaborative involvement are established, investigators work with communities and Native corporations to secure funding for these projects. Finally, the project’s dictionaries, grammars, web files and educational materials are given to the participating communities and the relevant Native corporations. According to the IPY 2007-2008 Education, Outreach and Communication Plan, one of the main objectives is to attract and help develop the next generation of polar scientists. In our project, for example, one of the project collaborators, Evgeny Golovko, was able to engage two graduate students at the St. Petersburg State University to commence work on the Emel’ianova Asiatic Eskimo fieldnotes. These two would be entering the materials into computer format, beginning October 2008. That they themselves both students of Eskimo language benefits the processing of the archival material, e.g., for re-elicitation on St. Lawrence Island and final expansion of the Siberian Yup-ik dictionary. At the same time, it will also help advance their study of the language. Principal investigator Michael Krauss was able to engage Southern Illinois graduate student, Andrew Edelen, to assist him and Jeff Leer on the project. Presently, he is working on Comparative Athabaskan Lexicon and have expressed to Dr. Krauss his hopes to specialize in Athabaskan, e.g., to do his doctoral work in it. Another example of outreach occurred when Michael Krauss’s work with the last Eyak language speaker, Marie Smith abruptly came to an end on January 21, 2008. This resulted in worldwide publicity, including an extensive obituary of her in The Economist. There were many interviews with journalists and many community-based events in which, he also had occasion to speak of Marie Smith and the extinction of her language – a most important aspect of his project’s work, raising public awareness of impending mass extinction looming over the world’s languages, including those of the arctic.
Logistics Summary:
This project supports the lexical documentation of two American language families, Eskimo-Aleut, and Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit. This project will produce a comprehensive collection of 9 dictionaries and web-based resources. During the next three years, the principal investigator, Michael Krauss will lead an international team of veteran linguists from Alaska, Belgium, Canada, Japan and Russia. These collaborators include: Willem de Reuse(Belgium), Evgenii Golovko(Russia), Steven Jacobson(United States), Andrej Kibrik(Russia), Jeff Leer(Alaska), Edna Ahgeak MacLean(Alaska), Osahito Miyaoka(Japan), John Ritter(Canada), Marie-Lucie Tarpent(Canada). Their experience in the languages or language families averages almost 40 years, one being a native speaker of her North Slope Inupiaq, Edna Ahgeak MacLean. In most cases, this project will enable these scholars to finish work which is the result of a lifetime or decades of work, based in every case on all previous documentation of the language and their own field-notes. The research work consists of: Han Athabaskan (lexicon) by Willem de Reuse Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan (grammar and lexicon) by Andrej Kibrik Eyak (grammar and lexicon) by Michael Krauss Tlingit (lexicon) by Jeff Leer Comparative Athabaskan Lexicon by Jeff Leer Southern Tsimshian (lexicon and grammar) by Marie-Lucie Tarpent North Slope Inupiaq (lexicon) by Edna Ahgeak MacLean Central Alaskan Yup’ik (grammar) by Osahito Miyaka Central Siberian Yup’ik (lexicon) by Steven Jacobson Central Alaskan Yup’ik (lexicon) by Steven Jacobson Alutiiq (lexicon) by Jeff Leer, Kodiak Russian Creole (documentation) by Evgenii Golovko Atuuan Aleut (documentation) by Evgenii Golovko Alaska-Yukon Border Athabaskan (documentation) by John Ritter The work is all fieldwork on endangered languages and/or consolidation of fieldwork and analysis of large masses of such data for dissemination for scientific and educational purposes as resources or definitive publications. The investigators have all worked in northern communities, have close ties to the speakers, and have unique insight to complete the proposed dictionaries and grammars. The goal of this project is to produce comprehensive documentation, both of Alaskan and neighboring languages. Data Management One of our goals is to have our findings available to anyone that is interested in learning and studying the languages of this area. Researchers, students, and lay people need to have this accessible to them, so they actually use it. The data will be stored in a usable format so that it is freely available and user-friendly. All of the data that will be gathered and documented will be stored in the Alaska Native Language Archive, located on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This archive is part of the Open Language Archival Community (OLAC), an international partnership of institutions creating a worldwide virtual library of language resources. Using this data standard allows for data sharing both nationally and internationally, an inherent goal of IPY 2007-2008.
All costs associated with this project will be paid by the PI through the grant.
| Season | Field Site | Date In | Date Out | #People |
| 2008 | Alaska - Anaktuvuk Pass | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Anchorage | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Atka | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Eagle | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Fairbanks | 2 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Kodiak Island | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Northway | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Point Hope | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Tanacross | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Tetlin | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Alaska - Tok | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Canada - Dawson | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Canada - Inuvik | 1 | ||
| 2008 | Canada - Klemtu | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Anaktuvuk Pass | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Anchorage | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Atka | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Barrow | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Eagle | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Fairbanks | 2 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Kodiak Island | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Nikolai | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Northway | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Point Hope | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Tanacross | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Tetlin | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Alaska - Tok | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Canada - Dawson | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Canada - Inuvik | 1 | ||
| 2009 | Canada - Klemtu | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Alaska - Anchorage | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Alaska - Eagle | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Alaska - Fairbanks | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Alaska - Nikolai | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Alaska - Northway | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Alaska - Tanacross | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Alaska - Tetlin | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Alaska - Tok | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Canada - Dawson | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Canada - Inuvik | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Canada - Klemtu | 1 |
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