Saving a vanishing language in the Norton Sound for Inupiaq culture

NOME, Alaska (KTUU) - A language reclamation workshop was hosted by the Kissaq Kingikmiuraguquat nonprofit to revitalize the Kingikmiut dialect at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Northwest Campus in Nome over the weekend.

Kingikmiut is a form of Inupiaq that is localized to the village of Wales. A community west of Nome at the edge of the Seward Peninsula.

“Our mission is to document and preserve the dialect and to teach the way that we are documenting and preserve the dialect to assist other villages and other people are interested in preserving their dialects,” Kissaq Kingikmiuraguquat volunteer, Deborah Atuk said.

Atuk, and her father Richard Atuk, says they are considering changing their mission statement to include teaching the language as many people have approached them wanting to learn.

“The kids want to know, and the parents do want them to know that they have a history, which goes back 5,000 years, at least for Wales, possibly 13,000 to 15,000 years for Inupiaq in general, and that’s an awful lot of history to skip,” Kissaq Kingikmiuraguquat founder Richard Atuk said. “We want to learn our language tied directly into our history.”

Richard Atuk said that it’s important to keep Kingikmiut, as well as other dialects alive as a language as it is geared towards an understanding of empathy and human connection, which could be valuable in today’s world, Richard Atuk said.

“Our Inupiaq language and the dialects, they have specific values, they have cultural information and ways of being and ways of interacting with your, your fellows with your environment,” Deborah Atuk said.

When Richard first began to study the Inupiaq language, he understood the importance of regional dialects from his elders as the differences in the Inupiaq language vary heavily from regions to even villages.

“It wasn’t until my dad really started to hone in on his dialect,” Deborah Atuk said. “He started to get participation and support from elders.”

In addition to workshops, Kissaq Kingikmiuraguquat has also been recording language lessons as well as using archival footage to help translate the Kingikmiut dialect. Richard Atuk is also in the process of creating a database of Kingikmiut in written form.

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