Thirteen voices chorused Marsha Guneiwti Hotch in a call-and-answer introductory song at Wednesday's family oriented Tlingit language class. The voices, beginning as unsure whispers and clumsy repetition, became stronger and more confident after each adult and child was introduced in the same sing-song format.

The song served as the initiation to a 10-week course, designed and taught by Hotch on Wednesday evenings at the Haines Sheldon Museum. Hotch, a G̱aanax̱ teidí (Raven clan) and a Shangukeidi yádi (Thunderbird clan) who was raised in Klukwan, is one of four remaining local speakers of Tlingit language in the village, she said. In Southeast Alaska, there are about 117 Native speakers, according to Sealaska Heritage Institute's president Rosita Worl. The institute is a nonprofit that promotes and documents the three remaining Native language and cultures in Southeast. Hotch is the youngest female Tlingit speaker in the region.

"I've been working at teaching Tlingit language for 20 years now," Hotch said. "Knowing the language is one thing, but learning how to teach something and make it effective is another ballgame."

Hotch learned to speak Tlingit at home, and has since learned to teach it by attending various classes in language acquisition and teaching methods, and linguistic in-field trainings. She is an ethnologist, a language instructor at Klukwan School, and a curriculum developer for the Goldbelt Heritage Foundation.

The program, held for two hours on Wednesday evenings, is designed for families to learn Tlingit together. Hotch said she believes educating young children along with their parents allows for more practice and better results in keeping the language alive.

"I think our focus is moving toward families so that the child can also be supported in the home and not just [in] a classroom. It will take a family to actually keep the language around much longer," Hotch said.

Through learning the language, local families will also learn Tlingit culture. The history is in the language, and the history and culture belong together, Hotch said. "Some say the culture can be passed on in English, but you miss the depth when you [translate to] English."

Native Tlingit speakers viewed the land as what it gave to them, Hotch said. "Whereas modern society tends to take and rename things [with names] that don't have anything pertaining to what enabled a group of people to survive in such a harsh environment." It might be a description, Hotch said. "Let's take going up Skagway Taiya...Ta-yá, it means it's the face of rocks, but we've anglicized it to Taiya." In this way, many Tlingit words have lost their associations.

Native languages also contain knowledge about a geographical area, and provide historical snapshots in clan names. "We have an exhibition downstairs that has 3,500 Native names," Worl said of the heritage center. "When you start looking at the names, there are indications of environmental climate change," she said. If you look at clans' names from the past, they reflect the environment of that time, like a dry lake or a food source and can be compared to the changing terrain over time.

On Sept. 30, Governor Bill Walker signed an administrative order at the First Alaskans Institute's Social Justice Summit in Juneau, that directs state agencies to work with tribal partners and use traditional place names on state signs and promote Native linguistics in public education. This came after a report, published by the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council this year, that said that all 20 Alaskan Native languages are at risk for extinction by the end of the century.

"It's our responsibility to acknowledge government's historical role in the suppression of indigenous languages, and our honor to move into a new era by supporting their revitalization," the governor said at the summit.

Worl thinks the administrative action is a symbolic gesture. "It elevates the status of the language, but unfortunately it provides no funding at all," she said.

Worl also said her hope is that the order will encourage state agencies and municipalities to rename their streets and buildings using Native language, and better incorporate Native languages into schools.

For her part, Hotch said she hopes to teach additional classes at the museum for anyone who's interested. To join Hotch's ongoing language course, call the Haines Sheldon Museum at 766-2366. The class costs $100 per family and dinner is provided. The classes run from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. for the next two months. Scholarships are available upon request at the museum.