Alaska Native linguists create a digital Inupiaq dictionary, combining technology, accessibility and language preservation

UTQIAĠVIK — Edna Ahgeak Paniattaaq MacLean smiled when her granddaughter Sirroun carried a thick tome with two arms and put it rigorously on the desk earlier than her.

“I had some younger individuals or youngsters inform me, ‘We’re making an attempt to be taught Iñupiaq but it surely’s so heavy!’” linguist and educator MacLean laughed, wanting on the Iñupiaq dictionary she wrote.

In June, MacLean and two Yup’ik internet builders, Christopher Egalaaq Liu and Lonny Alaskuk Strunk, accomplished a web-based Iñupiaq dictionary and word-building app, accessible at inupiaqonline.com. The challenge relies on MacLean’s Iñupiaq dictionary and goals to make studying the language in class and at dwelling sooner, simpler and extra accessible, even in rural areas.

“It’ll work,” MacLean stated. “Persons are enthusiastic about it.”

Her life’s work has been to review, translate and protect Iñupiaq — a language with an in depth oral custom however restricted written follow. The linguist’s efforts come at a time when solely about 5% of Iñupiaq audio system are fluent, and the necessity for language-learning instruments, in addition to complete academic packages, is rising.

The Iñupiaq On-line web site — launched by the Arctic Slope Neighborhood Basis — is the primary of its form for the North Slope dialect of Iñupiaq and includes a dictionary, a word-building operate and an audio library to listen to the way in which phrases are pronounced.

“It was designed for everybody,” Liu stated. “Now we have it so that folks can simply lookup phrases shortly. … We made it in order that they will lookup the underlying grammatical info in the event that they wish to.”

To date, about 1,200 distinctive viewers have visited the web site, Liu stated. Guests can lookup find out how to translate a phrase, see the plural type of the phrase, change the tense of a verb or add an adjective to a noun.

“The pc has been taught to create new phrases for the consumer primarily based on the morphological guidelines,” MacLean stated.

That is how the word-building device works: A learner would possibly wish to say, “I wish to eat,” and sort the phrase “eat” into the dictionary. The verb “to eat” has niġi because the stem, which is the half that helps drive the which means of the phrase. To construct out the total phrase, extra phrases are translated into completely different phrase elements — postbases, endings and suffixes — which are then hooked up to the stem.

Utilizing the web site, a learner can decide a postbase — on this case, “I wish to” — then select the proper case for “I” and see the outcome as “niġisuktuŋa,” or “I wish to eat.”

In the identical approach, by wanting up the phrase “truck,” learners can find yourself with the sentence, “It’s a large truck,” or “qamutiqpauruq,” by including different parts to the unique noun.

“That is simply the primary stage,” MacLean stated. “There are over 400 suffixes or postbases, and we’ve labored solely on 10.”

Beginning as quickly as September, linguists plan to begin bettering the algorithms for the web site to incorporate extra complicated parts — for instance, connective verb phrases for complicated sentences — in addition to conversational phrases.

“We’re planning to make updates to the web site and embody extra sentence varieties,” Liu stated, “and in addition similar to, bringing in possibly extra dialogue, or conversational-centered speech. … Over the subsequent 12 months, you possibly can count on to see updates to the web site.”

For now, learners can use the present model of the web site and revel in featured art work created by the late Iñupiaq sculptor, silversmith and woodcarver, Ronald Senungetuk.

Iñupiaq On-line just isn’t the primary language challenge that linguists Liu and Strunk have labored on collectively. A number of years in the past, they constructed the same web site for the Yugtun language and offered it on the 2018 AFN Conference. The web site obtained overwhelmingly optimistic suggestions, particularly on the interpretation operate of the web site, Liu stated.

The choice to construct a web-based device for Iñupiaq adopted naturally: Each the Yugtun and Iñupiaq languages would not have many irregularities, and so they comply with an outlined construction, making word- and sentence-building extra predictable, Strunk stated.

“Studying concerning the mathematical consistency of the language — all these guidelines might be fashioned to create full phrases — was very attention-grabbing to me,” he stated. “I may see the there can be functions for … extra thrilling language instruments.”

The challenge was initially funded via an $82,609 grant from the federal Administration for Youngsters and Households final 12 months and can quickly obtain extra funding via the Bureau of Indian Affairs, stated Ryan Cope, director of grant packages with the Arctic Slope Neighborhood Basis.

To create Inupiaq On-line, MacLean, Liu and Strunk met weekly by way of Zoom. MacLean would have a look at the web site design and provides builders suggestions. Studying from MacLean’s insights was a spotlight of the challenge for Liu.

“She wrote the grammar books. She compiled the dictionary. She’s Iñupiaq herself and the speaker of the language,” he stated. “It’s unimaginable as a result of loads of Native sources, language sources, are sometimes not written by their very own individuals.”

In her Utqiaġvik home just a few steps from the well-known whale bone arch, MacLean was slicing muktuk on a foggy afternoon in late June. The 77-year-old linguist lives in Anchorage however commonly visits her dwelling village. This time she got here for Nalukataq, to have fun the whale her brother landed.

Utqiaġvik is the place MacLean’s ardour for language took form.

MacLean grew up at a time when mother and father had been requested to talk English to their kids, however her father Joseph Ahgeak refused to comply with the rule. In third grade, a very strict trainer caught MacLean talking Iñupiaq and punished her.

“I used to be caught as soon as so she pulled my ear,” MacLean stated, “and I screamed the heck out of ache.”

The younger MacLean got here dwelling for lunch that day, carrying her hood up. Her mom Maria Ahgeak made her take off her parka earlier than consuming, and discovered what occurred after she noticed her daughter’s vibrant crimson ears.

“She obtained completely mad,” MacLean stated. “She placed on one in all my brothers’ parkas … and stormed throughout the lagoon. It was frozen so she stormed throughout the lagoon and bumped into my trainer’s classroom and grabbed her by the arm. ‘I’m taking you to the principal’s and there, I’m going to tug your ear!’ ”

MacLean’s relationship along with her trainer improved after that, and MacLean felt much more obsessed with talking her native language it doesn’t matter what.

“I used to be one of many folks that was punished for talking Iñupiaq, and I obtained mad, and my mom obtained mad,” she stated. “So we simply type of stated, ‘OK, we’re going to do it anyway.’ So I’ve stored up that curiosity.”

Fluent from the time she was a toddler, MacLean didn’t develop into literate in Iñupiaq till she was in her 20s and labored along with her mentor, Michael E. Krauss, a linguist and founding father of the Alaska Native Language Middle. Then MacLean taught Iñupiaq on the College of Alaska Fairbanks and immersed herself within the examine of the language.

She wrote two Iñupiaq grammar books and printed her newest dictionary in 2014, which took years of labor. First, MacLean wrote down each phrase she knew. When she would run throughout a phrase she didn’t know, she would name her mother and father and ask them to clarify it to her. And if her mother and father didn’t know that phrase both, she requested elders, hunters and different longtime Iñupiaq audio system.

Whereas instruments like dictionaries and apps could make studying simpler, MacLean stated that one of the crucial efficient methods to protect Iñupiaq in the neighborhood is to create immersion packages that enable college students to review the language on a deeper degree and for longer intervals of time.

“That’s the subsequent step that we have to do,” she stated. “Within the colleges, they’ve Iñupiaq language packages, but it surely’s not producing audio system. They’re instructing it in segments, and so they don’t have a real immersion atmosphere for the youngsters, particularly the preschoolers, to be taught it shortly. … The immersion methodology appears to be the one approach that works.”

Linguists are persevering with to work on Iñupiaq On-line to make it as helpful as attainable, Liu stated, whereas protecting in thoughts {that a} web site can’t be a full academic useful resource for the language.

“You’ll be able to’t actually be taught all the things via an app or via an internet site,” Liu stated. “You must additionally follow and interact with individuals.”