May 15
18
Good morning! Today is Wednesday, May 13, 2015! Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.” …. A typical school morning announcement? Yes! Until…. “Camai uciitilat, camai uciiniit. Ernerpak nupugpet Ipitaqa aniuq.”
Nestled at the foot of beautiful mountains and along the shores of Cook Inlet, Nanwalek, or “a place with a lagoon,” is home to approximately 250 residents who are from the Sug’piaq culture. The language of the Sug’piat is a dying language, with only about 20 fluent residents. They are the elders, who often do not live with children who are developing language skills.
It is hard for most people to imagine their language disappearing off the face of this earth. What would that be like? The exponential effects are many, for language affects interactions, culture, and history. Most would make every effort to save the language – or risk losing all traditions. In Nanwalek, the school has been key in the effort to save the Sugt’stun language.
Alongside other schools, Nanwalek is focused on academic standards to help students from this isolated K-12 multi-graded school have as many options as possible when they graduate. As importantly, the Alaska Cultural Standards are essential to daily life at Nanwalek School. These provide another set of standards based on traditional and ancestral beliefs that are about survival of a Native world view, and in Nanwalek this is a way of knowing and being to preserve Sug’piaq values and history through bilingual education.
Links
School website
Connect with Nanwalek on Facebook
