Curriculum Vitae

Specialties

• I specialize in the documentation, description, and history of the Eskimo-Aleut languages, especially in the areas of morphosyntax, discourse, typology, and prehistoric language contact.  I have worked with communities in Russia, Alaska, Eastern Canada, and Greenland, although my focus has been on Unangam Tunuu. As it is Unangam Tunuu is currently highly endangered, my work has included being actively engaged in language maintenance and revitalization activities, and on the long-term archival preservation of the results of documentation.  
  
  Key specialties:  Documentation and description, Eskimo-Aleut, language contact in prehistory, morphosyntax and typology, language maintenance and revitalization, language archiving.
  

Classes Taught

• I teach classes in the following subjects at both undergraduate and graduate levels:  Morphology, Semantics, Field Methods, Community Language Documentation Language Contact, Language Contact in Prehistory (focusing on the North Pacific Coast), Eskimo-Aleut Linguistics, Unangax̂ Language and Culture, and Documentation and Archives.

Current Research

• Language Contact in Prehistory along the North Pacific Coast: My current focus is in understanding the nature of the historical development of Unangam Tunuu, its divergence from the Eskimoan branch of the family, and the factors that encouraged this divergence.  This work is highly multidisciplinary, and involves results from the fields of linguistics, archaeology, genetics, paleo-environmental studies, and ethnohistory, and the geographical area that includes the current homelands of the Unangan, Sugpiat, Dena’ina, Eyak, and Tlingit. 

Publications

• How the Atkans Talk (Niigugis Mataliin Tununxtazangis)
• Pribilof Anĝaĝigan Tuningin / The Way We Talk in the Pribilofs
• Topic and discourse structure in West Greenlandic agreement constructions

Articles

• Subsistence Terms in Unangam Tunuu (Aleut), Language Dispersal Beyond Farming
• Coordination in Pribilof Islands Unangam Tunuu, Linguistic Discovery
• Hans Egede Oqaluppalaarutaa: Hans Egede’s Story, Proceedings of the 14th Inuit Studies Conference 
• Insubordination in Aleut. Dynamics of Insubordination
• Divine Inspiration.  Revue Amerindia
• Polysynthesis in Aleut (Unangam Tunuu).  Linguistic Typology of the North 3
• Object Reduction in Aleut.  Asian and African Languages and Linguistics 7: Transitivity and Its Related Phenomena
• Adequacy in Documentation.  Language Documentation:  Practice and Values
• Unexpected Non-Anaphoric Marking in Aleut.  Rara & Rarissima: Documenting the fringes of linguistic diversity
• Re-evaluating the Linguistic Reconstruction of Proto-Eskimo-Aleut.  Journal of Historical Linguistics
• Reexamining the Linguistic Prehistory of Aleut (Unangam Tunuu). Digging For Words: Archaeolinguistic Case Studies from the XV Nordic TAG Conference Held at the University of Copenhagen
• Subsistence Terms in Unangam Tunuu (Aleut).  Language Dispersal Beyond Farming
• Origins of Linguistic Diversity in the Aleutian Islands.  Human Biology

Lillian Maassen grew up in Anchorage and received her M.Phil in Linguistics from Trinity College Dublin in 2019. Her dissertation research focused on the vowel system of a little-spoken Irish English dialect. She has a background in Communications and nonprofit work, and her interests include phonology, sociolinguistics, and Indigenous language revitalization. 

Lawrence Kaplan is professor emeritus of Linguistics and director of the Alaska Native Language Center from 2000 to 2018. He has taught courses in Linguistics, such as Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology, Historical Linguistics, and Language Policy and Planning, and also works as a linguist with the Inupiaq Eskimo language, which is spoken in northern Alaska.

Kaplan is compiling dictionaries of Inupiaq as well as working on texts and grammatical explanations for the language. He is also involved with training Inupiaq language and culture instructors and works with programs in Native Language Education that offer degrees intended to prepare Native language teachers from Alaska and Yukon Territory in Canada.

Publications

• Studies in Inuit Linguistics: In Honor of Michael Fortescue
• Comparative Eskimo Dictionary with Aleut Cognates (Alaska Native Language Center Research Paper no. 9)
• Inupiaq in the Schools
• Phonological Issues in North Alaskan Inupiaq (Alaska Native Language Center Research Papers no. 6)
• Yupik Eskimo Prosodic Systems: Descriptive and Comparative Studies (Alaska Native Language Center Research Papers no. 7)
• North Slope Literacy Manual
• Qawiaraq Inupiaq Literacy Manual
• Iñupiaq Phrases and Conversations
• Kobuk Inupiaq Literacy Manual
• Suva Una (What's It Doing?) (Kobuk Dialect)

James Kari retired from ANLC in 1997 but continues to work on several Alaska Native language projects. In the past thirty-five years, he has done extensive linguistic work in many Athabascan languages, including Ahtna, Dena'ina, Koyukon, Deg Hit'an, Holikachuk, Tanana, and Upper Tanana.

Curriculum Vitae

Publications

• Ahtna Place Names Lists w/CD
• Ahtna Travel Narratives: A Demonstration of Shared Geographic Knowledge among Alaska Athabascans
• Athabascan Stories from Anvik
• Athabaskan Verb Theme Categories: Ahtna (Alaska Native Language Center Research Paper no. 2)
• Tubughna Elnena (The Tyonek People's Country)
• Dena'ina Legacy, A: K'tl'egh'I Sukdu
• Dena'ina Qenaga Duch'duldih (Dena'ina Athabaskan Junior Dictionary)
• I'll Tell You a Story (Sukdu Nel Nuhtghelnek)
• Dena'ina Topical Dictionary
• Lower Tanana Athabascan Language Lessons
• Lower Tanana Athabascan Listening and Writing Exercises
• First Christmas Tree (Ts'eba Tthadala: The Young Spruce Tree)
• Old Time Stories of the Scottie Creek People (Ttheek'and Ut'iin Yaaniida' Oonign')
• Dene-Yeniseian Connection, The
• Lower Tanana Athabascan Place Names
• Ahtna Place Names & Maps
• Shem Pete's Alaska: The Territory of the Upper Cook Inlet Dena'ina
• Yenida'a Tah, Tsu'utsaede, K'adiide / Mythical Times, Ancient Times, Recent Times: An Anthology of Ahtna Narratives

 

Jeff Leer's commitment to Alaska Native languages began at age seven when he started to study Tlingit in his hometown, Juneau. In 1973 he became a linguist and teacher at ANLC, and in 1991 he completed his Ph.D. dissertation, The Schetic Categories of the Tlingit Verb, at the University of Chicago. He learned to speak both Tlingit and Alutiiq, and he has done extensive linguistic work in other languages, as well as in the field of comparative Athabascan-Eyak-Tlingit.

Publications 

• Short Dictionary of Alaska Peninsula Sugtestun, and Alaska Peninsula Alutiiq Workbook, A (combined)
• Classroom Grammar of Koniag Alutiiq Kodiak Island Dialect
• A Conversational Dictionary of Kodiak Alutiiq
• Dene-Yeniseian Connection, The
• Athabaskan, Eyak, and Tlingit Sonorants (Alaska Native Language Center Research Papers no. 5)
• Proto-Athabaskan Verb Stem Variation, Part One: Phonology (Alaska Native Language Center Research Paper no. 1 )
• The Schetic Categories of Tlingit Verb
• Gagiwdul.at: Brought Forth to Confirm; The Legacy of a Taku River Tlingit Clan
• This Is the Way We Make Our Baskets
• Yupik Eskimo Prosodic Systems: Descriptive and Comparative Studies (Alaska Native Language Center Research Papers no. 7) 

Born, raised and educated in Berkeley, California, Steven A. Jacobson earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics at the University of California. Later, he studied Central Yup'ik Eskimo with the late Irene Reed at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, and learned much from his wife, Anna, a native speaker, and a writer of the language. Jacobson extended his studies to include Siberian and Naukan Yupik, and comparative Eskimo, with interests in the lexicon, grammar, dialectology, and literature of these languages. He taught university classes in Central Yup'ik for many years, and occasionally in Siberian Yupik, and is the author, co-author, compiler, or editor of a number of dictionaries, grammars, and other studies of the languages.

Curriculum Vitae

Publications

• Practical Grammar of the Central Alaskan Yup'ik Language, A
• Yup'ik Eskimo Word Chooser
• Yup'ik Dialect Atlas and Study
• Yup'ik Eskimo Children's Song (CD and booklet)
• Naukan Yupik Eskimo Dictionary-English
• Naukan Yupik Eskimo Dictionary-Russian Version
• Yupik Eskimo Prosodic Systems: Descriptive and Comparative Studies (Alaska Native Language Center Research Papers no. 7)
• Reading and Writing the Cyrillic System for Siberian Yupik
• Practical Grammar of the St. Lawrence Island Siberian/Yupik Eskimo, A
• Central Yup'ik in the Schools
• Comparative Eskimo Dictionary with Aleut Cognates
• Yup'ik Eskimo Dictionary, 2nd ed., 2 vols.

 

 

Hishinlai’ received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics in 2019. Her research and interests are on Indigenous language learning and teaching, second language acquisition, identity, sociocultural theory, and activity theory. She has worked extensively with Indigenous groups (Athabascan, Haida, Tlingit, Alutiiq, Inupiaq, Yup’ik and Aleut) throughout Alaska and Canada.

As a Professor of Linguistics and Alaska Native Languages, documentary linguist, Gary has conducted firsthand fieldwork Dene (Athabascan) languages of Alaska and Papuan languages in eastern Indonesia. His publications include a grammar of the Tobelo language, dictionaries of Western Pantar and Tanacross, and numerous papers describing the structure of these languages. Current projects include research on Alaska Native Place Names and the Alor (Indonesia) Ethnobotany.

Gary holds a B.S. degree from UAF and a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Alessandro Jaker is a phonologist and descriptive linguist, specializing in two Dene (Athabaskan) languages spoken in and around Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada: Wıı̀lıı̀deh Yatıı̀, a dialect of the Tłı̨chǫ (Dogrib) language (ethnologue: DGR) and Tetsǫ́t'ıné Yatıé (Yellowknife), a dialect of the Dëne Sųłıné (Chipewyan) language (ethnologue: CHP). He is currently working on a verb grammar of Tetsǫ́t'ıné, funded by an NSF/NEH Documenting Endangered Languages fellowship, to be published through ANLC.

Alex received his PhD in linguistics from Stanford University in 2012 and was a postdoctoral fellow at ANLC from 2013 to 2015, as part of the NSF Polar Postdoc Program.

André Bourcier has been with the Yukon Native Language Centre in Whitehorse, Yukon for 15 years before becoming Acting Director in September 2015. His worked previously many years as a consultant in Linguistics and Language Planning for the Gwich'in and the Inuvialuit of the Northwest Territories.

He received a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Université Laval where his doctoral studies were supported through a Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada scholarship.

Perry Gilmore, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania 1982), a sociolinguist and educational anthropologist, is professor emerita at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and professor of Language, Reading and Culture (LRC) and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) faculty at the University of Arizona. She has conducted communication, language, and literacy research in a wide variety of urban and rural settings in the United States, Russia, Africa and Australia. Interest in language and communication has led her to explore a wide range of questions on the origin, nature, and development of interaction and communication, including: field studies of non-human primate communication in the West Indies and East Africa, pidginization and creolization of languages, social aspects of literacy acquisition, and Indigenous language and culture regenesis.

She is the author of numerous ethnographic studies and co-editor of several major ethnography collections, including Children In and Out of School: Ethnography and Education, The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives, and Indigenous Epistemologies and Education: Self-Determination, Anthropology and Human Rights. Gilmore is a past president of the Council on Anthropology and Education.

Alice Taff works to foster Alaskan language continuity by engaging community members to document language, re-establish situations for language use, and create materials in their languages. Examples of materials are:

• Deg Xinag (Deg Hitʼan, Ingalik Athabascan) -- Deg Xiyanʼ Xidhoy Deg Xinag narratives
• Tlingit -- Woosh Een áyá Yoo X̱ʼatudli.átk Tlingit Conversations
• Unangam Tunuu (Aleut language)

Taff earned her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Washington in 1999. She is immediate past president of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas. Her current research interest is finding links between ancestral Indigenous language use and health.

 

Publications

John Ritter is the founding director of the Yukon Native Language Centre in Whitehorse. John documents and describes Yukon aboriginal languages, and he participates in the training of Native language instructors and specialists. He is particularly interested in place names and serves on the Yukon Geographical Place Names Board.