“Learning How to Speak with My Ancestors”: A Story of Finding Identity Through Language

Learning our heritage language allows us access to our ancestral roots, so believes Alisha Drabek, a woman who recently learned her native language of Alutiiq.

Published by Sierra Club National Magazine, in a compelling piece titled “Learning How to Speak with My Ancestors,” Drabek divulges her personal history (and struggle) with her native language and culture. Living on Kodiak Island, near the Gulf of Alaska, surrounded by an expanse of water, Drabek begins her profound piece by inviting us to explore her homeland.

She begins by examining a single word: imaq.

Imaq can mean ocean or sea, but it can also mean “a liquid contained inside” or “contents.” Imaq is a root word which can translate to “imartuq (it is full) and imaituq (it is empty), but also imasuugtua (I have a sinking feeling),” and as Drabek reveals, when you say “I am sad” in Alutiiq, you say “I am searching for my contents.”

Drabek was indeed searching for her contents. After losing her familial connection to the language (the death of her grandmother), Drabek decided that learning the language would offer her the “connection I longed for, a link in the chain of my self-identity as an Alutiiq woman.” She discusses the colonial history of her island and a “cultural amnesia” that led to an island-wide loss of Alutiiq in part driven by an “English-only” sentiment. She states that this “English-only” education “drove a wedge through our society, separating children from their language, culture, and families.”

Underscoring the importance of conserving language, Drabek recalls how she was taught Alutiiq through mostly family stories and archeological sites. Because her foundation in the language was shaky at best, Drabek prioritizes native language learning for her family: “My sons grew up with stuffed animals having Alutiiq names. They listened to me sing traditional Alutiiq songs and new lullabies we made up, and they joined an Alutiiq playgroup and took language classes.”

Drabek is an intermediate-advanced speaker of Alutiiq today. She highlights the very message of TWIN-CS, that heritage languages are pivotal to the holistic development of the child. Language is a pathway to culture. As members of TWIN-CS know, language has the ability to introduce us to different cultures and fosters connection beyond our own understanding of the world. And according to Alutiiq-speaker Alisha Drabek, language cultivates self-identity and our relationship to our heritage.

 

If you would like to read this inspiring piece, please follow this link.

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TWIN-CS

TWIN-CS advances the Catholic tradition of academic excellence by empowering Catholic schools to systematically transform from a monolingual to multilingual educational model in the service of vibrant culturally diverse populations.

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