James Kari is an American linguist and Professor Emeritus with the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) specializing in the Dene (a.k.a. Athabascan languages ) of Alaska. He served on the faculty of UAF from 1973 to his retirement in 1997.
15-536: Eklutna ( / ɛ ˈ k l uː t n ə / ; Dena'ina : Idlughet , Russian : Эклутна ) is a native village within the Municipality of Anchorage in the U.S. state of Alaska . The Tribal Council estimates the population at 70; many tribal members live in the surrounding communities. Eklutna lies 24 miles (39 km) northeast of Anchorage near the intersection of Mi. 142 of the Alaska Railroad and
30-433: A Dena'ina artist, Argent Kvasnikoff, created a custom alphabet for the language. Denaʼina is a polysynthetic language where a single word can mean the entirety of an English sentence. nu- again- n- you- t- FUT - n- see- gh- FUT - sh- I- l- CL - 'ił see/ FUT nu- n- t- n- gh- sh- l- 'ił again- you- FUT- see- FUT- I- CL- see/FUT "I will see you again." Verbs are
45-464: A boarding school for native children near the village before World War II. The U.S. Army established a facility nearby in the mid-20th century; it is now gone. In 2014, a 160-acre homestead acquired in 1924 was donated to the Native Village of Dena’ina Athabascan country, where Alaska Native people have lived for thousands of years. For the most part, the land has remained untouched — and under
60-629: A conservation easement, it will be maintained as a refuge for wildlife and protected from real estate development. Virtually all residents of the Eklutna Village are either Alaska Native or part Native; most are members of the federally recognized Native Village of Eklutna. For employment, most Tribal Members commute to work in Anchorage , nearby Eagle River , or the Matanuska-Susitna Valley . Eklutna first appeared on
75-526: Is qi lan qi lan they are qi lan James Kari For more than fifty years Kari has done extensive linguistic work in many Dene languages. These include Ahtna , Dena'ina , Koyukon , Deg Hit'an , Holikachuk , Lower Tanana , Middle Tanana , Tanacross , Upper Tanana , and Babine-Witsuwit'en . Kari continues to work on numerous Alaska Native language projects. He is the author or editor of more than 200 publications, including more than 4000 pages of bilingual texts in seven Dene languages. He
90-550: Is the Athabaskan language of the region surrounding Cook Inlet . It is geographically unique in Alaska as the only Alaska Athabaskan language to include territory which borders salt water. Four dialects are usually distinguished: Of the total Denaʼina population of about 900 people, only 75–95 members still speak Denaʼina. James Kari has done extensive work on the language since 1972, including his edition with Alan Boraas of
105-493: Is the most prolific contributor to the Alaska Native Language Archive (with more than 1000 entries as of 2019). His special interest is Dene ethnogeography. Kari has compiled or documented more than 14,000 place names in fourteen Alaska or Canadian Dene languages. He worked with Dena'ina writer and ethnographer Peter Kalifornsky on a 1991 compilation of his creative writings. In 2008 he organized
120-493: The Alaska Railroad brought an influx of American colonists around 1915. First settled more than 800 years ago, it is the oldest inhabited location in the Anchorage area. Its Dena'ina name is Idlughet [it͡ɬuʁətʰ] ("by the objects", referring to two nearby hills); the name "Eklutna" derives from Idluytnu , the name for Eklutna River , meaning "(plural) objects river". Russian Orthodox missionaries arrived in
135-511: The 1840s. The melding of Orthodox Christianity and native practices resulted in the brightly colored spirit houses which can be seen at the Eklutna Cemetery , in use since 1650 and now a historical park. The cemetery is probably the most photographed graveyard in Alaska, overshadowing other features of the village. An Alaska Railroad siding and station house were built near the village Eklutna in 1918. The federal government operated
150-531: The 1930 U.S. Census as an unincorporated village. Of its 158 residents, 61 were Native, 49 were Creole (Mixed Russian & Native), 47 were White, and 1 was Asian. It continued to report on the census until 1970 and was annexed into Anchorage in 1975. Anchorage School District operates area public schools. 61°27′29″N 149°21′44″W / 61.4580556°N 149.3622222°W / 61.4580556; -149.3622222 Dena%27ina language Denaʼina / d ɪ ˈ n aɪ n ə / , also Tanaina ,
165-725: The Mile 26 of the Glenn Highway 2 miles (3.2 km) from the mouth of the Eklutna River at the head of the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet , at 61°27′30″N 149°21′44″W / 61.45833°N 149.36222°W / 61.45833; -149.36222 in the Anchorage Recording District . The Dena'ina Athabascan village of Eklutna is the last of eight villages that existed before construction of
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#1732773380535180-406: The collected writings of Peter Kalifornsky in 1991. Joan M. Tenenbaum also conducted extensive field research on the language in the 1970s. The word Denaʼina is composed of the dena , meaning 'person' and the human plural suffix ina . While the apostrophe which joins the two parts of this word ordinarily indicates a glottal stop, most speakers pronounce this with a diphthong, so that
195-568: The e is considered a reduced vowel similar to the English schwa . In the Inland dialect, syllables at the end of a semantic unit are often longer, lower in pitch, and have longer rhymes. The onset of a syllable has consonant clusters of up to three, such as CCCVC, though these are rare and more commonly, a syllable onset is one or two consonants. Dena'ina uses a variant of the Latin alphabet, though
210-522: The most elaborate part of speech in the Denaʼina language, which vary in verb paradigms which vary by subject, object, or aspect. The following example is of -lan the verb "to be" in the imperfective aspect and in the Nondalton dialect. esh lan esh lan I am ch'i lan ch'i lan we are in lan in lan you are eh lan eh lan you all are n lan n lan he/she/it
225-477: The second syllable of the word rhymes with English 'nine' (as in the older spelling Tanaina ). Denaʼina is one of seven Alaska Athabaskan languages which does not distinguish phonemic tone. The consonants of Denaʼina in practical orthography, with IPA equivalents. The 4 vowels of Denaʼina. Close vowels are more open in the environment of a uvular consonant. Generally, the vowels i, a, and u are considered 'long' vowels and are fully pronounced in words, however
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