Éedaa ḵa Heather yoo x̱at duwasáakw. A toot x̱at jiwduwataan, ach áwé Gaanax̱teidí áyá x̱at. Yéil náx̱ x̱at sitee. G̱uneiwtí ax̱ at aawatee, ach áwé ax̱ tláa yóo duwasáakw G̱uneiwtí Marsha Hotch. Ax̱ tláa tsú Judi Holder yóo duwasáakw. Dléit ḵaa yádi áyá. Jilḵaat ḵwaan ḵa Akwesasne ḵwaan x̱at sitee. Kanienʼkehá:ka dachx̱án. Gunalchéesh.

Research Key Words:

Indigenous Languages, First Nations Languages, Language Revitalization, Linguistic Anthropology, Linguistics, Decolonization, Community Based Research, Aspect/Tense, Tlingit, Na-Dene, Alaska Native

Research summary:

My work focuses on how equitable research is engaged in and maintained with indigenous language revitalization being the ultimate goal. As academic institutions and disciplines such as anthropology and linguistics address their individual and collective involvement in colonialism, and as indigenous communities work to reverse heritage language lose, what then can collaborative and ethical research look like, and who will benefit? This work looks specifically at language revitalization program building in the Lingít (Tlingit) language learning communities located in Alaska and the Yukon, and ways in which an academic institution such as UBC can best support those efforts. Incorporated in this work is formal linguistic theory to assist in language documentation and pedagogical material creation, as well as ontological approaches to ethnographic documentation of language learning, in real time. By looking at Lingít specifically, the hope then is that recommendations on how other academic institutions and tribal groups can partner together most equitably can be taken more broadly to First-Nations/ academic relations in general.

Linguistic Anthropology