Lament for Language

Chief Marie Smith Jones, Udach’ Kuqax*a’a’ch: a sound that calls people from afar. Last native Eyak speaker, RIP – January 21, 2008. LISTEN

Artist statement:
An attempt to honour late Chief Marie Smith Jones, Udach’ Kuqax*a’a’ch, (May 14, 1918 – January 21, 2008) who was the last native Eyak speaker. The endangerment and extinction of Aboriginal languages is a stark reality and a threat to human diversity, with the death of a language is lost an entirely unique cosmology, and cultural knowledge. Aboriginal languages contain deep intrinsic knowledge of their lands and territories, what will happen when we forget/erase the languages of the lands we live on? If humanity can create such complex technologies and communications, why can’t we protect indigenous languages.