Chief Marie Smith Jones Prays for the Eyaks

On Monday, January 21, 2008, Chief Marie Smith Jones, the last native speaker of Alaska's Eyak language died. In this excerpt from the 1995 Documentary, More Than Words, Chief Marie prays that her people can recover their culture.
This took place in Cordova, Alaska - a small fishing community along Prince William Sound.

To learn more about the Eyaks, please visit
http://eyaklanguageproject.googlepages.com

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Eyak
• language
• last
• speakers
• indigneous
• languages
• news
• documentary
• Alaska
• Cordova
• Anchorage
• Indian
• Culture

[BabyJane4444]

Is there any site where I can find this language(dictionary)??

[alaskabliss]

@BabyJane4444 

[EsperantoTv]

The participants of the Symposium on Linguistic Rights, United Nations, Geneva, 24-04-2008 (3xw)linguistic-rights(a dot)org will remember her and the Eyak people...

[anomalousnyc]

beautiful, beautiful

[uphamtimothy]

"Awa'ahdahaanda'laxsa'a'ch'i" in Eyak means "Thank you for coming here." Eyak does not have to die with Marie Smith Jones. There is so much participation in Alaska, France, and elsewhere in the world. What makes a language extinct or endangered, is that it loses its currency in the marketplace. There is strong participation coming out of Anchorage, but in order for languages like Eyak to stay vibrant, it needs to be used in retail stores and bank transactions.

[papillonaquatique]

@kmj2000 There are tribes that refuse to pass on their language because they believe theirs is no longer as good as another. That in my opinion is to stop caring. Also in certain areas of the world speaking in a lesser known language will get you and your people viewed upon as outcasts so being bilingual is not necessarily a good thing.

[kmj2000]

@papillonaquatique Almost correct. Languages die because it ceases to be passed down to children for a variety of reasons, usually societal pressures not because they "stop caring" or that another language gives more advantages (after all, being bilingual is more advantageous than being monolingual). 

[papillonaquatique]

@orionasmb Even if the UN cared the power remains in the hands of the people to save their language.The UN can't make people learn a language and use it.Languages die because the population dies off or because people stop caring and decide to use another language because it gives them more advantages in the world.

[orionasmb]

shame that she died...

I hope this becomes a lesson to the UN to help save more languages in the future, as one language dies every ten days

RIP

[Gtroopers]

R.i.p

[alfonsodonate]

Chief Marie Smith Jones peace be with you and your people