Professor of Linguistics and a specialist on Eskaleut languages at the Alaska Native Language Center and Director of the Alaska Native Language Archive at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
Source
The Arctic Institute. Center for Circumpolar Security Studies.
The Arctic is at the forefront of potentially catastrophic climate change, affecting the survival of most forms of life. In comparison, discussions of language loss in the Arctic may seem trivial, and language researchers sometimes struggle to justify their research in such a context, particularly with respect to documentation and revitalization efforts. However, language loss is a reflection of cultural destabilization of communities in the Arctic, and thus a symptom of the broader problems of environmental change, sustainability, and adaptability. Is language revitalization, therefore, part of the solution? In the following article, I offer a perspective on this question, with special reference to the Eskaleut languages. The Eskaleut languages include Unangam Tunuu (formerly known as Aleut), spoken along the Aleutian Islands, Bering Island, and the Pribilof Islands; the Yupik languages, spoken in the Russian Far East, St. Lawrence Island, and Southwest Alaska; and the Inuit language group, spoken in northern Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland.