Last Lost Languages of Our Time: "The Eyak"

* First Video: Marie Jones Smith (Last Eyak language speaker)




(Video: Chief Marie Smith Jones Prays for the Eyaks in this excerpt from the 1995 Documentary: "More Than Words")


Marie Smith Jones (May 14, 1918 – January 21, 2008) was the last surviving speaker of the Eyak language of Southcentral Alaska. She was born in Cordova, Alaska, was an honorary chief of the Eyak Nation and the last remaining full-blooded Eyak. In a 2005 interview, Smith Jones explained that her name in Eyak is Udach' Kuqax*a'a'ch which, she said, translates as "a sound that calls people from afar".

According to the BBC, 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.

Nearly 20 other native Alaskan languages are at risk of disappearing.


* Second Video: "Parlez-Vous Eyak?"




The Eyak, Alaska Native Language, gets an unlikely chance at revival with the help and inspiration of a young man living half way around the world.


Guillaume from France learn the Eyak language at the age of twelve, because the value of keeping humanity heritage alive, according to him, is "important".


But to tell the truth, that "passion" is "priceless".