A History of Eyak Language Documentation and Study: Fredericæ De Laguna in Memoriam
A HISTORY OF EYAK LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION AND STUDY: FREDERICÆ DE LAGUNA IN MEMORIAM Michael Krauss Frederica de Laguna stumbled upon Eyak, i.e. (re-)“discovered” Eyak, in 1930. However, she was by no means the first to stumble upon Eyak. That honor goes to William Anderson in 1778, the first person ever to write down an Eyak word. In fact then from 1778 to 1885 there are over 20 written sources of various kinds, documenting or defining or mapping the Eyak language. Of these sources, six are mere individual or a few words, identified as Eyak or not, but six more are formal vocabularies of Eyak as such, ranging in length from 80 to 1128 words, during the Russian period. Of these formal vocabularies, one was published in English, and two more, including the 1128 words, were published in German. Moreover, there are at least nine sources explicitly recognizing Eyak as a separate language. Two of those are fundamental maps, 1796 and 1863, the latter published in color, no less! The other sources, no fewer than eight, are discussions of Eyak as such and its genetic relations. Six of these were published – mostly in German. Eyak was thus very well recognized and documented by the standards of the time, when Franz Boas arrived – from Germany – upon the American scene. Nevertheless, when in 1930 Frederica de Laguna, Boas’s student, came to Cordova, Alaska, to outfit for Chugach Eskimo archeology, it was mere chance that she then first learned about Eyak. This is a history full of ironies. Krauss hopes to do justice to them for the reader appreciative of humanistics and the history of science.
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