Arts & Culture

The Elders and Youth Conference is underway in Anchorage this week, back to what it used to be – a time for both young and old to make a personal connection through their love of Alaska Native culture.

The series is part of a mosaic of language revitalization work from the Kenaitze Indian Tribe. The tribe recently launched a virtual Dena’ina Audio Dictionary and is continuing to offer language courses for adults and language lessons for kids.

Juneau-based Arias Hoyle, known by his stage name Air Jazz, said he hopes his song “You’re The North Star” acknowledges and inspires the youth of small villages.

The speakers will give updates on the current status of language revitalization for all three languages, as well as what they think the future of the languages looks like. 

For the past few months, Vera Starbard and Andrew Okpeaha MacLean have been sequestered in what they call “The Writing Room” in New York City, where they work with producers and writers they say are some of the best in the business.

Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News says the show’s creators have taken a keen interest in creating an honest portrayal of journalists and journalism in Alaska.

The class assignment was to write a letter to anyone they wanted. In Lingít. Eechdaa Dave Ketah chose his late grandmother, the person who spoke Lingít to him when he was growing up in Ketchikan. “And I was telling her that it’s hard learning the language at this point in my life, and one thing…

Half of the first language speakers of Kodiak Alutiiq died between 2020 and 2022.

Jim Metzner has traveled far and wide to record sounds of the world and share them with listeners. The Library of Congress will preserve thousands of tapes and other items dating back to the 1970s.

X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell’s podcast is a platform for people doing language revitalization and decolonization work across North America.