The app is currently available in the App store.
The Yugtun Language App consists of over 600 recordings of fluent Native speakers’ voices, three levels of games, three types of quizzes, and a searchable database.
Download it for free from the Apple Store or Google Play.
Read more about the process of developing Yugtun Language App at alaskapublic.org.
Learn about Bristol Bay towns and villages, along with geographic sites such as rivers, valleys, bays and hills. More than 750 locations have been added to the database. Some have up to four names, including two variations of Yup’ik, English, and Russian. BBNC’s Land Department has added audio files to many locations, so you can hear and practice the Yup’ik pronunciation of a site name.
Enjoy this virtual journey through Bristol Bay! Anglaniluci ayagakici Iilgayarmi!
Our partners at UAF’s Alaska Native Languages Archive have been tracking current news related to Alaska Native languages and place names with an online blog called Talking Alaska. A review of the content that’s been posted over the last few years will give you a good idea of what’s going on in the state related to Native place names and languages.
This post by Professor Gary Holton caught our eye. It gives examples of many recent place names success stories, addresses the fears expressed by some that Native place names are “unpronounceable,” and concludes that:
We Alaskans inhabit a culturally and geographically rich landscape, and place names are the vehicle through which language unites culture and geography. Regardless of whether our ancestors have walked this land for thousands of years or we have just arrived, Alaska Native place names connect us to that landscape…official names celebrate this great land. We should welcome Native names, not fear them.
You can find the Talking Alaska blog at the top of our “Educational Resources” page.
]]>Several panelists, representing public and private organizations, described funding opportunities that would support cultural heritage projects, including native language programs.
Ron Chambers, of Southern Tutchone, Tlingit and Scottish ancestry, gifted the audience with traditional songs and dances to conclude the Alaska Native Place Names Workshop, held in Anchorage, Alaska, April 29, 2015. Chambers was raised in Kluane, Yukon and also Haines, Alaska. He is wearing a hand-tanned moosehide jacket and a 50-year old headdress showing his clan symbols of wolf and eagle, adorned by ground squirrel skins given to him by his grandmother.
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Dr. Lawrence Kaplan, professor of Linguistics and Director of the Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Ann Riordan, an independent scholar who has worked with the Calista Elders Council since 1999 on community-based projects, including a robust place names project.
“Place names show use and knowledge, and index a whole history of an area,” said Kaplan. “We are working with some of the last people who have that knowledge.”
Riordan spoke about the Calista Elders Council place names project, noting that the stories and histories that go with place names are just as important. However, she noted, the decision to publish the stories is a local one. “Content decisions must be made by the communities.”
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Gayle Miller, director of academic programs for the Lower Kuskokwim School District, studies a map of Bristol Bay place names during a break at the Alaska Native Place Names Workshop, Anchorage, Alaska, 2015.
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Hazel Faye Katuk Pebley, Deputy Director, North Slope Borough, Department of Iñupiat History Language and Culture, reviews a map of place names during a break at the Alaska Native Place Names Workshop, Anchorage, Alaska, 2015.
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