Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Skweit Jessie Morgan grew up going to potlatches at the ANB Hall, but she didn’t speak Tlingit. Now she is taking advantage of a new chance to learn.

Morgan and more than two dozen residents filled the ANB Hall Monday evening to immerse in a language that has only a few speakers left in the Chilkat Valley and fewer than a hundred across the region who have been speaking since birth.

“My dad grew up going to boarding school, so he never learned. His mother didn’t want to teach him because she was prohibited from speaking. I know that he had the desire to learn,” said Morgan. “He wanted us to be closer to his heritage.”

In an effort to revitalize the language and promote fluency in the valley, Chilkoot Indian Association (CIA) is hosting classes twice a week. CIA administrators hope the three-year program, which started earlier this fall and also has a family language nest component, will increase Tlingit use by 20% across the community.

Morgan, 32, is not only learning the language with the other students but she is also learning how to teach, as an apprentice with Klukwan elder and longtime Tlingit language teacher Marsha Hotch, who is leading the class. Hotch, who grew up in a Tlingit-speaking household in Klukwan, is one of three fluent speakers in the Chilkat Valley.

“I’m amazed at how big our class is,” Hotch said. Hotch has been teaching Tlingit in Haines, Klukwan and regionally for decades. She compared her drive to teach the language to the need to help somebody struggling to breathe.

“I encourage everybody to give voice, let their breath be the breath of the language — which is what we need. We need people; we need breath,” Hotch said.

A CIA survey administered earlier this year indicated that 52% of Chilkoot families use no Tlingit language in their homes and most of the rest use fewer than 15 words.

In the classroom, Hotch emphasizes immersion. Students use phrase books and a dictionary but instead of filling out worksheets on Monday, they listened to Hotch, who gestured to objects, moved her body and repeated commands, standing up and standing down.

“I teach it so that my students can experience it — because that’s the way I learned it. That’s all that was spoken in my home,” Hotch said.

Before class students eat together, acquiring food and cutlery from a buffet with Tlingit signs: shál (spoons), litaa (knives), x’agweinaa (napkins), s'íx' t'áal' (plates). Hotch said her goal is for students to converse in Tlingit over dinner.

The students have spent more than 10 hours with Hotch so far, and they’re still learning basic grammar and vocabulary. Early in Monday’s lesson, Hotch held up a s'áaxw (pronounced something like ts-OWK) meaning “hat.” And tuk'atáal — pants. And kinaak.át — coat. And simply by gesturing and repeating herself in Tlingit, without using any English, she taught students how to say “put on the hat” and “take off my hat” and “his hat,” and the same with pants and shoes and a coat.

Later in the class students engaged in “popcorn Tlingit,” rapidly giving each other commands to practice motions like standing up, sitting down and raising both hands.

Luck Dunbar, who is taking the class with his family, said learning the language’s grammatical structures around possession (my, yours, his) has been especially difficult. “It’s very challenging,” he said.

Morgan also said learning Tlingit has been a challenge, particularly because it requires moving away from writing things down. She has taken beginner Tlingit four times. “It just never connected, being able to create sentences. But learning from Marsha, she’s our birth speaker. I’m learning a lot,” she said.

Ted Hart whose family is not only taking the class but is also one of five families participating in the language nest program — which involves a commitment to speak Tlingit at home — said he values the immersion both in and out of the classroom.

“I’m starting to hear the language a lot more in the house. It’s been really good getting together with people, with families and our local elders,” Hart said.

Hotch’s lesson Monday ended with a review of colors, a topic that illustrates the connection between Tlingit and the local environment. To say something is “white” in Tlingit is to say it’s like snow (dleit). Or purple – like blueberry (kanat'á). Or pink – like fireweed (lóol).

“Tlingit is very descriptive,” Morgan said. “It requires a lot of dedication. But it’s also a new way of thinking – a new way of thinking about everyday things.”