Celebrating language – Inupiaq workshop comes to Nome

Last weekend the Inupiaraaqta or “Let’s Speak Inupiaq” workshop landed in Nome, bringing together people from all over the region, of all ages and levels of fluency for an immersive, connective experience of language and culture.
Kissaq Kingikmiuraguqtuat, a non-profit dedicated to preserving Inupiaq, specifically the Wales and other northwest Seward Peninsula and Little Diomede dialects, put on the three-day program at the UAF Northwest Campus in Nome.
This is the fourth workshop of its kind has been held in Nome.
Started by Richard Atuk and his daughter Debbie, Kissaq Kingikmiuraguqtuat was originally a community of Inupiaq speakers and interested learners who met on Zoom every week during the pandemic, sparked from Kingikmuit Dance group in Anchorage, where people shared the desire to have more discussions and collaboration around language.
As the weekly meetings grew steadily in speakers, the group developed accurate transcriptions for words and phrases they learned. The group would work off transcribed texts from King Islanders as their model, but with Inupiaq being first and foremost an auditory language, the group had the opportunity to debate and tease out accurate spelling and phrasing for their dialect.
Debbie Atuk shared that it wasn’t until the regular Zoom meetings that she realized the fluency of her father’s Inupiaq.
“I grew up in Nome, hearing my grandparents speak and their friends speak, and their friends only spoke in Inupiaq when they would come and visit. I heard them speak to each other, I never heard my dad speak, and had no idea that he had this knowledge ever, ever, never. And now, with all the work that he’s done to produce the booklet that he has, I’m advocating with some of the people that I know through academia, to try to get his work published,” Atuk said.
Richard Atuk has been recording and analyzing Inupiaq for many years, specifically the Kingikmiut, or Wales, dialect. He cultivated some of his lived knowledge into written texts, which provide a nuanced look into the history of Inupiaq; how it has evolved and dwindled but continued to survive.
“How do we tell our history when it’s not written? Well, it was done through language. And when we study our language, we start to learn about more than history. We start to learn about who we are in terms of ways of being,” Richard said to the workshop participants.
There are currently an estimated 1,250 highly fluent Inupiaq speakers in the state, according to a 2020-2022 survey conducted across Alaska by language group Kipigniuqtit Iñupiuraallanikun. This number shows a decline from a 2009 survey that cited 2,144 speakers, however the recent survey estimated 82 percent of Inupiat have some level of knowledge regarding their language. The study also reported participants spoke Inupiaq most often daily when around grandparents or in language classes.  

Contextual learning
For a topic as sensitive and impactful as language, providing context was necessary. On the first day, all participants were encouraged to introduce themselves in a traditional way and if they felt comfortable, in Inupiaq. A page in the workshop packet provided an outline of how to present oneself. Name, English name, hometown, parents and grandparents. These all establish a baseline understanding of someone that’s not only comprehensive but connective. During many of the introductions from people across the region, murmurs of recognition of names and connections between families were discovered.
“Our language is for people. Our language is for each other. Our language is about survival and land,” Richard Atuk said in his speech to begin the conference.
Richard, like many other elders at the conference who shared their stories, went to a boarding school where he was forced to learn English.
Often during introductions, elders shared about their experience having their language taken from them and ways they’ve maintained it. One way being singing hymns in Inupiaq while at boarding school.
“I want to talk about translated songs. I know sometimes people have issues and problems with religion entering in because religion did so much to take our dancing and so much to take our language from the schools, so there’s hard feelings,” Richard said. “I recognize translated songs as a tool, a vehicle, our elders could practice their songs and still practice their language at the same time.”
Presenters in all portions of the conference stressed the importance of participation without fear. Recognizing that it could be intimidating for speakers who aren’t as familiar with Inupiaq, Richard encouraged “If you’ve got something to say, say it out loud.”
“Learning our language is difficult. Lot of things in life are difficult, but what I’m going to say is that once you learn the basic building blocks of it, later on, it gets easier,” Richard said.

Elements of Revival
One of the sessions of the conference was Intro to “Digital Interviewing” taught by Jenny Irene Miller, an artist originally from Nome who taught the youth at the conference how to respectfully and properly interview, record and edit elders speaking in Inupiaq using an iPhone. The goal was to encourage youth to preserve the speech of elders as much as possible while they’re still around. Throughout the weekend elders were brought into interviews led by Miller where they were asked to share about themselves and to tell a story in Inupiaq.
The videos will be edited by the students and turned into permanent documentations of the language.
Maggie Pollock taught Inupiaq immersion in Utqiagvik for five years. At the conference she held a session on pronunciation of consonant sounds and vowel combinations. She led the group through the written alphabet, which has been developed over the years as Inupiaq speakers put letters to the once unwritten language.
“I wasn’t to say to the young kids that, if you can’t speak it, it’s in you. It didn’t come out to me until I went to Barrow and I heard the language again, so don’t give up. Keep trying,” Pollock told the group during her session.
Participation was abundant in the workshops. It wasn’t uncommon for a person to share a story that changed the course of the conversation. There was a high level of respect amongst session leaders and those attending, especially in deference to the elders who spoke fluent Inupiaq and could provide correct pronunciation or translations.
Annauk Olin, daughter of Pollock and scholar of the Inupiaq language taught an immersion storytelling workshop using a story written by Richard and Jane called A Day at Camp. The day before the workshop began, Olin asked the elders to help her revise the script to make sure the words were the correct ones for the Kingikmiut dialect.
The following days she put the words approved by elders to the test. In two immersive, Inupiaq-only sessions she taught the story to the group, mostly youth, who grew in their confidence and retention as the session progressed.
“You’ll notice you have to unlearn things you’ve learned in school to participate in this,” Olin said at the beginning of the first session.
Olin explained she was using a method used by Salish people of the Pacific Northwest in their quest for language revitalization. The technique was a repetitive, auditory focused way of learning language. Though participants expressed the difficulty, they also praised the unique style that cultivated pronunciation and retention.
Josie Bourdon sat in on one of the sessions and during the reflection afterward praised Olin for her tutelage. “You taught in the Inupiaq way, where no one gets scolded,” Bourdon said.

Strengthening Connections
The conference reached beyond classroom learning. Throughout the days there were many opportunities for participants to spend time getting to know each other. During mealtime or breaks elders, youth and everyone in between chatted over coffee and Tang. For some this was a reunion, friends from different villages who don’t get to see each other often. For others it was an introduction to a new group.
On Friday night a potluck was held with a smorgasbord of Native foods. Herring eggs, greens, muktuk, dried fish, reindeer fat, smoked salmon. Eskimo drumming and dancing was performed and enjoyed.
On the third day of the conference, during a moment of afternoon lull, Sophie Nothstine, an elder originally from Wales, walked into the main room. There were 15 or so people sitting scattered in clumps, chatting amongst themselves, waiting for the next talk to begin. She walked right up to someone and told him to stand up. Sophie, barely more than 5’2” set down her cane and embraced the tall man before her. “Take three breaths and give your body to me,” she said wrapping her arms around him. “Give all your weight to me.” He timidly slumped his shoulders releasing a bit of weight onto the woman, who confidently repeated herself. “Give your weight to me.” With each exhale more weight was released. Sophie stood planted, unfaltering. “When you’re ready, you can let me go,” Nothstine said. This process was repeated with three others as she made her way across the room to her seat. “This is real heavy stuff, this conference,” she said. “We have to be there for each other. We have to lift each other up.”
At the conclusion of the conference, Richard thanked the attendees for coming, and touched on the importance of continuing to practice cultural traditions, dancing, hunting and language. Then he shared a story about his dad’s hunting team in Wales and how the respect they had for his father trickled down to him and his daughter. “What I’m telling you is in the past we didn’t have mayors we didn’t have presidents, we had Umialik [whaling captains],” Richard said.
“You know, all my life I’ve met a lot of people and I’ve seen people on television, and I’ve met a little-bit-famous people. But here’s my take on it: In my mind the most dignified person I ever met in my life was a hunting leader from Diomede. Mr. Ahkinga.”