Eyak

There was a really nice article in the economist recently. An obituary for a woman named Marie Smith. Strange right? Marie Smith, or as she was originally named, Udachkuqax*a'a'ch (no joke) was 89 when she died. What is interesting about Marie is that she was the last living Eyak speaker. The Eyak are a native people from Alaska. Eyak was their spoken language. It was the type of language that has 32 words for ice and no words for apples or oranges. Where stories of the world's creation involved magical loons and tiny people. It has particular interest to me because I studied Native American creation stories and they are some of the best I've ever come across. Sadly, many of those stories are gone, along with Marie's. According to the economist, half the planet's languages will disappear in the next 50 years.

Makes you think...

-posted by maze