Linguist Edna Ahgeak MacLean worked with web developers to launch an online Iñupiaq dictionary and sentence building app. The project is based on McLean’s Iñupiaq dictionary and aims to make learning the language faster and easier. Photographed on June 28, 2022.
. The project is based on MacLean’s Iñupiaq dictionary and aims to make learning the language in school and at home faster, easier and more accessible, even in rural areas.Her life’s work has been to study, translate and preserve Iñupiaq — a language with an extensive oral tradition but limited written practice.
Iñupiaq linguist Edna Maclean and two Yup’ik web developers, Christopher Egalaaq Liu and Lonny Alaskuk Strunk, built an online Iñupiaq dictionary and word-building app based on MacLean’s Iñupiaq dictionary. “This is just the first stage,” MacLean said. “There are over 400 suffixes or postbases, and we’ve worked only on 10.”
For now, learners can use the current version of the website and enjoy featured artwork created by the late Iñupiaq sculptor, silversmith and woodcarver, Ronald Senungetuk. The project was originally funded through an $82,609 grant from the federal Administration for Children and Families last year and will soon receive additional funding through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said Ryan Cope, director of grant programs with the Arctic Slope Community Foundation.
In her Utqiaġvik house a few steps from the famous whale bone arch, MacLean was cutting muktuk on a foggy afternoon in late June. The 77-year-old linguist lives in Anchorage but regularly visits her home village. This time she came forUtqiaġvik is where MacLean’s passion for language took shape.
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