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'Eyak' is a moribund Na-Dené language that was historically spoken in southcentral Alaska, near the mouth of the Copper River.
Marie Smith (born 1918) of Cordova is the language's last speaker. She was also the last full blooded Eyak. Because of the dying off of its native speakers, Eyak has become a poster child for the fight against language extinction.
It should be noted that the spread of English and suppression of aboriginal languages by American authorities are not the only reason for the decline of the Eyak language. The northward migration of the Tlingit people around Yakutat in precontact times encouraged the use of Tlingit rather than Eyak along much of the Pacific Coast of Alaska. Eyak was also under pressure from its neighbors to the west, the Alutiiq people of Prince William Sound, as well as some pressure from the people of the Copper River valley. Eyak and Tlingit culture began to merge along the Gulf Coast, and a number of Eyak speaking groups were absorbed by the Gulf Coast Tlingit populations. This resulted in the replacement of Eyak by Tlingit among most of the mixed groups after a few generations, as reported in Tlingit oral histories of the area. This process was however entirely voluntary, in stark contrast to the coercive efforts of the U.S. government during the territorial era.
The closest relatives of Eyak are the Athabaskan languages. The Eyak-Athabaskan cluster, together with Tlingit, forms a basic division of the Na-Dené language phylum.
Numerous Tlingit place names along the Gulf Coast are derived from names in Eyak; they have obscure or even nonsensical meanings in Tlingit, but oral tradition has maintained many Eyak etymologies. The existence of Eyak-derived Tlingit names along most of the coast towards southeast Alaska is strong evidence that the prehistoric range of Eyak was once far greater than it was at the time of European contact. This confirms both Tlingit and Eyak oral histories of migration throughout the region.

Contents

Consonants

Vowels

External links

Bibliography

Consonants

:

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Glottal
			central	lateral			plain	labial
'Stop'	unaspirated		'd'				'g'	'gw'	'g̣'
	aspirated		't'				'k'		'q'
	ejective		't' '				'k' '		'q' '	' ' '
'Affricate'	unaspirated		'dz'	'dl'	'j'
	aspirated		'ts'	'tl'	'ch'
	ejective		'ts' '	'tl' '	'ch' '
'Fricative'			's'	'ł'	'sh'		'x'	'xw'	'x̣'	'h'
'Nasal'		'm'	'n'
'Approximant'		'w'		'l'		'y'

Vowels

:

	'Tense/Long'			'Lax/Short'
	front	central	back	front	central	back
close	'i.'		'u.'	'i'		'u'
mid	'e.'			'e' /'æ'	'a'
open	'a.'			'a'

Vowels followed by an "n" are nasalized.

External links

★ Native Village of Eyak (official homepage of the Tribe)

★ From Stewards to Shareholders: Eyaks Face Extinction (interview)

★ Alaska Native Language Center

★ Eyak Preservation Council

★ The Eyak Corporation (ANSCA Corporation)

Bibliography

★ Krauss, Michael E., ed. 1982. In Honor of Eyak: The Art of Anna Nelson Harry. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center. ISBN 0-933769-03-2

★ New Yorker, June 6, 2005: "Last Words, A Language Dies" by Elizabeth Kolbert