The Upper Kuskokwim language (also called Kolchan or Goltsan or Dinak'i) is an

Athabaskan Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific ...

language of the

Na-Dené Na-Dene (; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included, but is now considered ...

language family. It is spoken by the Upper Kuskokwim people in the Upper Kuskokwim River villages of Nikolai, Telida, and McGrath,

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...

. About 40 of a total of 160 Upper Kuskokwim people (Dichinanek’ Hwt’ana) still speak the language. A practical

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

of the language was established by Raymond Collins, who in 1964 began linguistic work at Nikolai. Since 1990s, the language has also been documented by a Russian linguist Andrej Kibrik.

Bibliography

Alaska Native Language Center
Retrieved on 2007-03-14. * Collins, Raymond and Sally Jo Collins. 2004. Dichinanek' Hwt'ana: A History of the people of the Upper Kuskokwim who live in Nikolai and Telida, Alaska. (Online: Alaska Native Language Archive ite
UK964C2004

References

Links

Upper Kuskokwim Language and Culture Preservation
(website in development)
Dinak'i , Upper Kuskokwim Dictionary
iOS app Northern Athabaskan languages Indigenous languages of Alaska Indigenous languages of the North American Subarctic Endangered Athabaskan languages {{Alaska-stub