Frontiers 198: Yup'ik Language Pipeline

By Rhonda McBride, KTVA

One of the big takeaways from efforts to revitalize Alaska Native languages: A language is much more than just words. It’s the backbone of a culture’s ability to survive and adapt to its environment.

Despite its importance, the loss of Native languages has been steady over the last 100 years.

Today, most are on the edge of extinction, except for a few like the Yup’ik language, which has about 10,000 speakers, the most of any Alaska Native group – far less than even 20 or 30 years ago – but still the language with the most potential to make a comeback.

Yup’ik, or Yugtun, is heard the most in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. In about 25 percent of the communities you can still find children who speak Yugtun as their first language. Linguists say that’s important, because without new speakers, a language is sure to die.

Another hopeful sign: the Yup’ik language is being taught in Anchorage, Alaska’s biggest village.

This week on Frontiers, we look at three Anchorage programs which have come together to form a language pipeline, so children can be immersed in the Yup’ik language from infancy to grade school. Each program builds upon the other to keep a steady supply of new speakers flowing through the pipeline.

The partnerships it took to create this language pipeline are not something you’d expect in an urban area. But each of these programs chose Yugtun, because it’s still robust enough to find good teachers. It might be the best chance for children to learn a Native language and experience the cultural values that flow through it. Many of the parents who signed their children up for the Yup’ik immersion programs are Alaska Native but not Yup’ik. They just want their children to be exposed to what’s known as “Native Ways of Knowing.”

Success in these programs could lead to other Native languages being taught in Anchorage.

Here are some of the highlights of this week’s show:

• More than words: A look at Cook Inlet Native Head Start’s preschool. It began as a stand-alone program, the first piece of the Yup’ik language pipeline.
• Out of the mouth of babes: Cook Inlet Tribal Council was the next group to connect to the language pipeline. It developed a Yup’ik immersion program at its Clare Swan Early Learning Center for infants and toddlers, children who have begun to feed the preschool with new students.
• Taking back education: The Anchorage School District is the latest partner to expand the pipeline. In 2018, it started the city’s first indigenous language immersion program at College Gate Elementary with a kindergarten class. Those students are now in first grade and will go into second grade in the fall of 2020.
• Partners in the Pipeline: Ethan Petticrew and Brandon Locke are our featured guests. Petticrew, a longtime advocate of Native language revitalization, is head of Cook Inlet Native Head Start. Locke manages the Anchorage School District’s world languages and immersion programs. We’ll hear about all the partners who made Anchorage’s Yup’ik language pipeline possible.