The Lingít language is such an elaborate language—It needs to be lived—It is a living language—Little Raven, Yéilk', Vivian Mork.

My children were born of place, of ancient names; born of snail—táx’, and Raven—Yéil, of Hoonah—Xuniyaa, of Tlingit Aaní. Their Tlingit identity is dependent upon a social relationship to their ancestral landscape, Southeast Alaska. This relationship is in danger of disappearing: our Elders tell us that if we do not know our names, our way of life will disappear. Of the 800 Native American languages, over 500 face extinction. In Southeast, Alaska and Canada, the Lingít language is one of them. We have between 200-500 fluent speakers left.

My indigenous ancestors, the Sáami and the Suomalaiset of Scandinavia, migrated to the U.S. at a time when their languages were being suppressed. During our ‘Americanization,’ my family lost the ability to speak our indigenous languages—I don’t want this destiny for my children.

In order to learn Lingít, two of my young-adult daughters, Vivian Mork, Yéilk’ (Little Raven) and Nikka Mork, Cháas Kaawoo Tláa (Mother-of-Humpy-Tail) and I are attending a language immersion retreat sponsored by Sealaska Heritage Institute. We are meeting in Sít’ eeti Geey—Glacier Bay National Park. For ten days we are to speak nothing but Lingít, one of the most complex languages in the world. This isn’t easy since there are about 30 different sounds not found in English.

Now, it's the first morning of the retreat. Last night, all thirty of us participants vowed to speak only Lingít: we even signed a contract. I enter the main lodge after a quiet breakfast—none of us beginning speakers know how to talk to one another—and I see Tlingit Elder, Nora Dauenhauer, busy weaving a basket. This is the perfect opportunity to start speaking. Nora is a fluent speaker, translator and scholar. I figure if I’m going to make a mistake, I’m going to do it right. My first sentence—completely in Lingít—I say to Nora, “Daa sá yéi daa.eené?” I ask her what she is working on and she responds to me in Lingít. Although I don’t fully understand her response, I hear the word for ‘basket’ and ‘working’, which contains the word for hand—jin. I am excited because she actually understands me; there is hope for my stumbling tongue.

Because I'm afraid I cannot communicate, I pack a pencil and paper, a small dry-erase board, and phrase cards in my backpack. I lug them around all day, afraid to let go, afraid to take a risk. Then I think of the boarding school generation and how our Elders were forced to speak and think in the English language. The fear they must have experienced is unimaginable, especially when it was associated with punishment: even their thoughts would have been painful. Thinking about what the Elders went through gives me the strength to put aside my language tools and trust the immersion process.

On the fourth day of immersion, there are no flashcards in my pocket and no dry erase board in my backpack. I'm apprehensive. Frankly, though, I'm afraid of being unable to communicate; but at least I can point and make baby-talk. All day today, I've toddled about with my Lingít words, taking my first steps. Now, we are walking out to the beach. I stop to pick up a rock from the trail. I say to an Elder, “Lingít x’éináx sá—How do you say it in Tlingit?”

"Té," the Elder replies.

"Té," I repeat back to her.

We hike out to the point, then cross the beach to stand in the middle of an area peppered with large boulders. Here, several Elders remember a time before the Park closed subsistence activities to Hoonah residents. They speak in Lingít, telling us about the relationship they once had to this landscape. One of the Elders tears up because many of our Elders fished, hunted, and harvested seafood in this area. But today the Park Ranger escorts us, oblivious to the grief they are experiencing. Everyone is silent as the ranger points out the landmarks: the old fish traps, the site of ancient smokehouses. We look beyond those artifacts to the Park's lodge, to the Park's headquarters, the Park's housing.

The tide eventually lowers beyond the boulders and we start looking around for what we came here for: gathering shaaw—gumboots. Our rubber boots stick in the mud as we trudge over slippery rocks and orange popweed. First, we are instructed to thank shaaw for giving its life to us. I lift the thick-blanketed veil of orange seaweed like a soggy curtain and spot several large shaaw suctioned to the base of the rock. I take my knife and slip it under the edge of its shell. I repeat my thanks, "Gunalcheésh shaaw, gunalchéesh shaaw,” while lifting the tip of the knife. The suction loosens and it comes free. I gently put the shaaw in my bag.

Afterwards, as I walk back down the path with my bag full of shaaw, I no longer need to repeat the name over and over again in order to remember the word. In my mind, I see the crustacean hiding beneath orange seaweed. The language lives on this beach, in shaaw, in the limpet shells called Yéil saaxu—raven’s hat, in the barnacles—s’ook, and in a fall sunset over Icy Strait. Likoodzi—amazing.

On this fourth night, I dream in Lingít; yet, I cannot fully comprehend this language during the daytime. In my dream, words form like shadowed hemlocks in waning light. Sounds move from Raven’s mouth to mine. The underlined ‘x’ and ‘g’ pull back into my throat. I'm speaking to the Elders about shaaw. We sit around a table laughing while cleaning shaaw, preparing them for a meal.

All too soon, though, morning comes and I resist waking into an English reality. I sense the forest lightening outside my window. Snuggled in my bed, I'm unwilling to break the language spell. For a brief moment, until English thoughts come flowing into my brain, I think and speak in another world—I'm fluent in Lingít.

On this fifth day, I'm having trouble remembering the term for fork: ách at ya dusxa.át—that thing you eat with; so one of our Elders, Florence Sheakley, assigns her students a task: learn the Lingít word for ‘fork.’ She holds up a fork and says the name in Lingít and then we hear the word for ‘no’ and ‘eat’ and ‘dinner’. We get her meaning instantly: in order to eat dinner, we must be able to say the word. Fortunately, another language-learner comes up with an idea: stomp out the syllables with our feet. This is a method called Total Physical Response (TPR). We walk around inside the building and out on the forest path, stomping—Ách-stomp, at-stomp, ya-stomp, du-stomp, sxa-stomp, át-stomp.

 

At dinner, I stand in the front of the food serving line; Florence is guarding the forks. I smile at her and tap my feet on the floor, “Ách-stomp, at-stomp, ya-stomp, du-stomp, sxa-stomp, át-stomp.”

Florence grins and says, “Yakéi—good” and hands me a fork and plate.

During dinner, I don’t say much, I just listen. Our Elders are always reminding us that listening is just as important as speaking. After we finish dinner, the plates and food are cleared and we're ready for storytime and speech-making. Richard Dauenhauer, Nora’s husband, stands and begins to tell us a story in Lingít. I'm happy because I can understand the Lingít word for ‘three’—nask and the word for ‘bears’—xoots. Soon, I recognize the story as Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

We're in a room in the loft above the dining area, where on this sixth day, we gather for my daughter’s naming ceremony. Money is placed against Nikka’s forehead and we repeat her Lingít name four times: Cháas’ Kaawoo Tláa, Cháas’ Kaawoo Tláa, Cháas’ Kaawoo Tláa, Cháas’ Kaawoo Tláa. She's given her great-auntie Anna’s name, Cháas’ Kawoo Tláa—Mother-of-Humpy-Tail. Anna is our great-aunt who died many years ago while subsistence fishing just north of Glacier Bay. The cultural, as well as the literal, meaning behind Nikka’s name translates to ‘the instinct returning fish to the rivers and streams’ and also ‘The- Woman-at-the-Head-of-the-Stream-Who-Calls-the-Salmon-Home.’ After Nikka is named, the celebration moves outside and down the trail to a clearing near a small pond. We dance, sing, and drum on the boardwalk among shéix’w—alder, yán—hemlock, kanat’á—blueberries and was’x’aan tléigu—salmonberries, celebrating who we are within this gifted landscape—Sít’ Eeti Geey.

It's the last day of the language immersion camp and we are on a large catamaran heading back to Juneau. Once we stepped on the boat, we were allowed to speak English again. The immersion experience has changed our lives, but we are sad because we must return to a world where the Lingít language is still suppressed, where the schools bristle at our every attempt to put the language in the schools, claiming lack of funds, yet fully funding Spanish, French and German. We return to a world where people laugh at you when your words come scraping and wet from the back of your throat, when spittle sprays from the sides of your mouth.

We hug and take photos and start to exchange contact information; I am aware that I don't know most of the participants' English names. For the past ten days, I've only known them by their Lingít names. When they tell me their names, I smile, because they don't look like 'Mary', 'Hans,' 'Lance,' and 'Virginia.' I think I'll continue using the Lingít names. These are the names I love them with.

The boat drops my daughters and I off at the village of Hoonah. We return with a sense that language is more than just words: language is landscape, people and animals, creating Lingít yooxatangí—a Lingít way of thinking.

Today, my daughters and I are walking through the village speaking to one another in Lingít. I say to the blue jay in the tree, “Yak’éiyi ts’ootaat x’ishx’w.” Cháas’ Kaawoo Tláa—Mother-of-Humpy-Tail says to the eagle, “Yak’éiyi ts’ootaat Ch’áak’—Good morning. This is the language of our landscape. Yéilk’— Little Raven, my oldest daughter, corrects us as we struggle to pronounce the words. It's then that we realize something profound: my daughters and I are the first generation, in three generations, to be able to speak with one another in the Lingít language. There is hope. Yes, we make mistakes. Yes, it's hard to round the letters at the end of a word, to pinch a letter near the houseposts of your teeth. It's scary too, risking being made fun of, risking frustration, and a sense of loss. Today, though, I say to my children ixsixán—I love you. They say back to me, “haa tláa yeexsixán.”

*Any Lingít spelling or syntax errors are my responsibility. I am a beginning speaker/learner.