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Alaska: Last Speaker of the Eyak Language has Died


A woman believed to be the last native speaker of the Eyak language in the north-western US state of Alaska has died at the age of 89.

Marie Smith Jones was a champion of indigenous rights and conservation. She died at her home in Anchorage.

She helped the University of Alaska compile an Eyak dictionary, so that future generations would have the chance to resurrect it.

[…]

Ms Jones is described by her family as a tiny chain smoking woman who was fiercely independent, says the BBC’s Peter Bowes in Los Angeles.

“To the best of our knowledge, she was the last full-blooded Eyak alive,” her daughter Bernice Galloway told the Associated Press news agency.

“She was a woman who faced incredible adversity in her life and overcame it. She was about as tenacious as you can get.”

(via warrenellis, bbcnews)

This entry was posted on January 24, 2008, 23:12 and is filed under Grammar, People Who Died, USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.