For Alan Boraas, an anthropology professor at Kenai Peninsula College, helping to revitalize a language that's nearly dead is not just an interesting project, it's the right thing to do.
"It's a very emotional thing to see a language become extinct," he said. "It's the equivalent of a species becoming extinct. What we lose is not just the words, but the thought processes that are part of a language."
For more than two years, Boraas and his colleague Michael Christian have taken pictures, navigated through HTML and digitized old audio recordings of Native writer Peter Kalifornsky in order to present Dena'ina vocabulary, grammar, stories and place names in an interactive Web site that went live last month.
"I'd sit in front of my computer and Michael was next door sitting in front of his. I'd build a Web page there are several hundred Web pages and add certain elements," Boraas said. "(Christian's) expertise is in doing the sound work and perfecting the pages so they ran smoothly. I couldn't do that so I'd give it to him and he'd edit and fix it.
"We've got a draft of it up and running now, we're just trying to get the bugs worked out."
In an e-mail, Boraas said some browsers may not support his Web site, but the kinks should be worked out within the next couple of weeks. The Web site is an ongoing project with more features being added to it as time goes by. Visitors can access the Web site at http://qenaga.org/kq/index.html.
"I hope people of all ages go to it and gain insights into both the language and the culture," Boraas said.
This project is the latest in the Kenaitze Indian Tribe's endeavor to revitalize their Native language. Cultural Director Alexandra "Sasha" Lindgren, a tribal elder with the Kenaitze Indian Tribe, said a three-year grant from the Administration for Native Americans allowed the tribe to buy Boraas out of his teaching contract with KPC, enabling him to devote more time to the Web site.
But the site is only one part of what the grant was used for.
"We're training people to teach the Dena'ina language," said Lindgren, the project director for the grant. "It's more than the Web site."
The credit for much of the Dena'ina revitalization goes to James Kari, who spent 30 years working on a dictionary that's on sale now, as well. Boraas said Kari came to Alaska in the 1970s after studying Navajo and worked with Peter Kalifornsky to develop his dictionary.
"He began recording before computers," Boraas said. "He would write the word as people said it, develop the spelling system and just build up massive amounts of information."
Kari's dictionary took him to Nondalton and Tyonek, where he would seek out Native speakers in order to expand it.
"What's so remarkable about it is if it wouldn't have been done over this 30-year period, it would never have been done because the youngest speaker that we know of is 60 years old and most are in their 70s or 80s," Boraas said.
"This dictionary is a great achievement. In a hundred years it will be considered the most important book produced during this time period for this part of Alaska."
Finding people who actively speak the Dena'ina language is one of the most difficult parts of revitalizing it. Boraas said a lot of people know the language, but because of language extinction policies in place as recent as the 1960s, some were severely punished for speaking it.
"Children, if they spoke the Native language in most parts of Alaska, including the Kenai Peninsula, would have their mouths washed out with soap or be beaten," Boraas said. "Now those folks are elders."
To the Kenaitze Indian Tribe, language revitalization ties into their sense of identity, Lindgren said.
"Why is it important that we revitalize a Native language? It defines who we are, and it defines the relationship to where we are," she said. "Imagine how you would feel if the United States were to sell Alaska, and that company or that country that bought the land mass that's Alaska came in and said you may no longer speak English."
Lindgren said the grant money allowed them to initiate a Head Start program centered on language revitalization. The Alaska Native Heritage Center also has a middle school program centered on the Dena'ina language and the Alaska Native Language Center is training teachers.
"Alan's Web site falls into the middle of that," she said.
The majority of the tribe's 1,200 members live in Anchorage, Soldotna and Kenai, but the Web site is an important tool for members scattered across the country.
"The people who don't live here can access the language their grandmother spoke," Lindgren said. "It's a wonderful opportunity, and we'll just wait to see how far it goes."
Jessica Cejnar can be reached at jessica.cejnar@peninsulaclarion.com.
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