Classrooms at Unalaska City High School are usually empty on Friday evenings as students and staff headed off for the weekend. But on one winter Friday, things were different.
A group of people circled around a table playing cards. They were exchanging Go Fish cards, but it wasn't quite your typical Go Fish game.
One player said to another, "chaaskax̂ anuxtakuqing." The other player responded "chaaskax̂ matalakaqing. Kaartax̂ suda."
They were speaking in Unangam Tunuu — the language of the Unangax̂ people who have lived in the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands for thousands of years. Across the country, there are just about 60 fluent speakers of Unangam Tunuu.
This card game was part of a weeklong language workshop led by the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, a regional nonprofit Native organization. Their teachers travel throughout the region teaching the language to locals.
The Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska invites them out at least once a year to help Unalaskans brush up on Unangam Tunuu and preserve the language for future generations.
Anfesia Tutiakoff, cultural resource director for the tribe, said language preservation is particularly crucial in Unalaska because there are only a few fluent Unangam Tunuu speakers on the island today.
"We are seeing the language lost," Tutiakoff said. "We really need our younger generations to start taking it on and start learning it and to do it properly."
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Most of the country's remaining speakers are elders, but asking an elder to speak Unangam Tunuu can be challenging.
For nearly 100 years starting in the late 1800s, many Alaska Native children were punished if they spoke their native language at boarding schools where they were forcibly sent.
"I think sometimes when people think about our dark past they think, 'Oh, that was so long ago.' It wasn't like my mom's mom was forced to speak English," said Ariel Gustafson, a member of the Qawalangin Tribe who participates in APIA's language workshops.
Like her grandmother at boarding schools, Gustafson said many elders became "fluent listeners." They understand the language but don't speak it due to past trauma.
"I was in either kindergarten or first grade, pretty young, and my grandma was still alive, and I came home and I was like, 'Grandma, I can count to 10 in Aleut.' And I counted to 10, and she started bawling," Gustafson recalled. "I didn't get why."
Now, Gustafson is determined to help create a brighter future for Unangam Tunuu. She teaches it in weekly classes in Unalaska.
"I think we kind of have to do it to prove that we're still here and the culture is still alive," Gustafson said. "It's like, 'Hey, you tried to beat it out of us,' and they were legit, in fact, disciplined for not speaking in English. But we're here, we're trying, and you can't make me speak English."
This is the second year the Native organization has hosted the weeklong workshop in Unalaska.
Nikkita Shellikoff, one of the traveling teachers who lives in Anchorage but grew up in False Pass in the eastern Aleutians, said having the Unangam Tunuu classes in Unalaska is important.
"A lot of the adults that have come to this class, they were never taught it by their parents or grandparents," Shellikoff said.
The Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska holds regular local language preservation programs like Healing with Plants for Unangax̂ women and an annual kids summer camp on the island focused on Unangax̂ traditions — from art to food to hunting — where they also teach Unangam Tunuu.
Erin Levesque, another APIA teacher, said it's essential to teach young children the language. Not only because children learn languages more easily, but it's also part of healing the wounds of colonization and forced assimilation
"My grandchildren have been hearing it since they were in the womb," she said, getting teary-eyed when describing how her own grandchildren greet her in the morning in Unangam Tunuu.
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Back in the school classroom, the Unangam Tunuu weeklong workshop was coming to a close. Students gathered in a half circle and started singing a Unangax̂ song together.
Language workshops like this are just one step in bringing back and reclaiming Unangam Tunuu, a Native language that was once silenced by colonizers not long ago.
All the language teachers thank the elders for passing down Unangam Tunuu to them, especially Dr. Moses Dirks, Sally Swetzof and Becky Bendixen.
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