Frenchman brings language alive

Published on July 30th, 2010

By JENNIFER GIBBINS

In 2008, following the death of Marie-Smith Jones, the last full-blooded Eyak and only living Eyak speaker of the language, reports in the media pronounced 'Eyak language extinct'.

Oddly enough, the Eyak language was quietly alive and well -- in France. Unbeknownst to anyone, a French school boy named Guillaume Leduey had been teaching himself Eyak since the age of 13 and had become remarkably fluent. Earlier this month, Leduey, now 21, left Europe for the first time to come to Alaska. The Eyak Preservation Council and Native Village of Eyak welcomed Leduey to town with an open house on June 12th.

At the gathering, the gifted linguist, dressed in sneakers, jeans and a railroad cap, came across more like small town college kid than elite academic. Leduey acknowledges that as a teenager he was first in languages at his school, but describes his early interest as 'sort of weird', as in not cool. So much so, that over the past seven years, Leduey never quite got around to telling even his closest friends that he was teaching himself an obscure dying language. They only discovered it a few weeks ago when Leduey posted a brief news article about his trip to Alaska on his Facebook page. To Leduey's surprise, his friends thought it was uber-cool.

Leduey comes from a modest family. His mother is an accountant and his father, who suffers from MS, is unable to work. The family lives in Normandy, a bucolic area of northwestern France with a coastline facing the English Channel. Rolling grassy fields, cows, milk and cheese are characteristic of the region. During World War II, the Allied invasion of Normandy led to the restoration of the French Republic and was a significant turning point in the war. Luduey credits his parents with being open minded and taking him everywhere as a young child. "They wanted me to see everything, know everything," he said.

Leduey read in Eyak to the open house guests from Eyak scholar Michael Krauss's book, The Art of Anna Nelson Harry, and described the process of teaching himself the language.

"I don't know if I mentioned this, but I was learning Eyak at the same time I was learning English."

"Well," he explained with laughter to his stunned audience, "there was a dictionary written in English about Eyak, and I didn't speak English, but I want to speak Eyak. So I had to learn English."

The dictionary Leduey refers to was written by Krauss, who founded the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1960, and also founded the Alaska Native Language Center. Until the recent emergence of Leduey, Krauss was the sole remaining speaker of the language following the death of Marie Smith Jones. It is remarkable that the Eyak language survived into the 21st century, much less at all.

In the 1870's there were only about 200 Eyaks. Among many pressures on the people and the language, a policy of acculturation that began in the 19th century and endured well into the 20th century, prohibited children in Alaska from speaking or using their traditional languages at school and required students to use English exclusively in order to assure their "speedy education and civilization."

Myra McDonald, the first Bureau of Indian Affairs school teacher in Cordova, taught at the BIA school from the early days of Cordova's school system around 1908 until 1932. The school began with 30 students, but by 1933 when archeologist Frederika de Laguna arrived, the total Eyak population had dwindled to 38. In 1947 the BIA school was closed and Native students were brought into the public school system.

When Dr. Krauss started his work in 1963, only six speakers of the language remained, among those, Marie Smith-Jones, her sister Sophie Borodkin and Anna Nelson Harry, who were all likely students of McDonald, none of whom were speaking Eyak in their day to day life.

Krauss determined to create the first and only Eyak language dictionary. Over the course of several summers he travelled between Cordova and Yakutat, documenting the language and, unique at that time, recording speakers.

By the early 1970's Krauss had compiled more than 6,000 terms and created an original dictionary that ran 3,300 hand typed pages. In 1972 he recorded Anna Nelson Harry speaking her poem "Lament for Eyak', a haunting call into the darkness of time:

"why is it I alone, just I alone have managed to survive?"

Eyak was never spoken by more than several hundred, or possibly a few thousand people, but according to Krauss, Eyak may be more documented than classical Hebrew. Over 30,000 pages of field notes, books and writings from all over the world, have been preserved in digital format and archived at the University of Alaska by Alaska journalist and film maker Laura Bliss Spaan.

Bliss Spaan developed enduring friendships with the notoriously feisty Smith Jones and Krauss while creating a documentary of the Eyak elder's life, More Than Words. While Krauss is the recognized Eyak scholar, Bliss Spaan has been the driving force behind the preservation of materials, recording of over 28 audio and videotapes of oral histories, recordings of Marie Smith Jones and Dr. Krauss speaking Eyak, and an award winning Eyak language learning DVD. Funding for some of Bliss Spaan's work has come from the Eyak Preservation Council and Native Village of Eyak.

About the time that Bliss Spaan was working to create the digital archives, Leduey was fiddling around on the Internet. He had become interested in Haida, which he repeatedly describes as 'a very beautiful language', and was researching more about the area where Haida originated when he stumbled onto Eyak.

Leduey was intrigued by the fact that only one living Eyak speaker remained. He wrote to the Alaska Native Heritage Center asking to purchase a copy of Krauss' book, which included two CDs. Sperry Ash, who works for the center, asked Krauss to sign a copy of his book for a young French student and sent it off. Three years later, Bliss Spaan, who plays competitive women's hockey, got a weird email in her 'ladies hockey mailbox'.

"I called up Dr. Krauss and said 'I got this email from someone named 'Guilluame' asking about Eyak. What kind of name is Guilluame'," she asked.

Leduey wrote that he was interested in the Eyak language learning DVD that Krauss and Bliss Spaan had recently produced, but emailed back to say thank you, he was only 16 and could not afford the $150 materials fees plus postage. Impressed by the teenager's interest, Bliss Spaan sent the materials anyway. Three months later, she got another email from 'Guillaume'.

"Holy smokes, he had replied in Eyak," said Bliss Spaan.

Since then Krauss, Bliss Spaan and Leduey have kept in touch. Upon meeting Dr. Krauss for the first time in Alaska, Leduey said "I have been listening to him for years on the DVD, but to sit there with him, he actually exists!"

Laughing, he goes on to say "When I first read a tale to Dr. Krauss to show how I could pronounce the language, it was like 'well, it's not that bad, but there needs to be a lot of practice'."

Part of the purpose of the trip to Alaska was to work intensively on pronunciation. If you've never heard Eyak, the sounds are formed on the back of the tongue, with lots of clicks and pauses. It would make good rap music.

"You have to forget what you have learned before, to act as if you have a new mouth, a new tongue. I studied Georgian in Paris for one year and it helped me a lot to learn Eyak because there are lots of similar sounds," said Leduey.

Leduey has also studied Chinese, and, German for seven years, which he says he cannot remember a single word of. It reminds him too much of the war that destroyed much of Normandy. Asked what language he speaks in his dreams, Leduey quickly responds "I don't speak in my dreams'.

While Krauss is a skilled linguistic scholar, Ledeuy is the perfect counter part -- more just an uber cool young guy with a quirky but deeply sincere interest in teaching people to speak Eyak, backed up by serious skill.

"I am very patient, I can teach people basic things that are useful," said Leduey.

As it poured down outside the Ilanka Cultural Center, people laughed as Leduey described a list of Eyak words to express rain. Rain. Fat rain drops. Rain falling. Rain falling sideways.

Krauss says that Leduey's interest and ability are unique and was disappointed when a fellowship application to bring Leduey to Alaska was turned down. Airfare was paid for by his parents. Krauss, Bliss Spaan and the Eyak Preservation Council have provided accommodations, local travel and more. Bliss Spaan is now filming a documentary about Leduey titled Parlez Vous Eyak which she hopes to use to raise awareness and support to enable his continued work.

Asked the obvious question of why he studies Eyak, Leduey responds, "Even if you were French, it would be very hard for me to answer the question of why I learn Eyak. I have no answer to give, it comes from within."

Guillaume Leduey can be reached on Facebook and via email at guillaume.leduey@gmail.com.