The Beginning...

My first post was on the nature of linguistics, what we do, and why it is important, and I must apologize for the slightly technical nature of that post. I'm keeping this blog however to document my linguistic fieldwork this summer and keep you all up to date on what I'm doing and how I'm doing. So this summer I will be embarking on a pilot field study on the Norton Sound Kotlik dialect of the Yup'ik language. Yup'ik is the largest of the Eskimo-Aleut languages spoken in Alaska today. The Kotlik dialect however is spoken only in the village of Kotlik by perhaps 70 elders as I have been told so far. My goals for this summer therefore is to spend some quality time in Kotlik getting to know people, making new friends, learning a little of what I believe is one of the most beautiful languages in the world, and beginning what I hope will become a much larger collaborative documentation project, and perhaps the foundation for my dissertation (ideally a Grammar and a dictionary).

Tomorrow morning I will fly out from Honolulu to Fairbanks, Alaska (I arrive Tuesday morning) where I will spend a week exploring, having fun, and making sure I'm prepared. Additionally, Fairbanks is home to the University, and the Alaska Native Language Center and Archive (ANLC/ANLA) where much of what has been written about Alaskan languages (there are 19 of them) has been collected. I hope to spend some quality time at the ANLA while I'm Fairbanks to see what has been collected, and check the place out, while also meeting any of the linguists who have stuck around for the summer. After a week in Fairbanks I will take a small propeller plane to several small communities finally ending in Kotlik, Alaska, which is pretty much just south of Nome. I will spend about 4 weeks in Kotlik working with the community on this project and hopefully making some new life-long friends. It seems I will probably also eat fish while here for the first time in as long as I can remember (yes, I live in Hawai’i and no, I still don't eat seafood) so I'm slightly terrified, though perhaps I can try Caribou in exchange(?), cuz that'd be cool. Anyways, after my time in Kotlik I will fly to Colorado to visit my family and my puppy, and work on analyzing the data I collected from this initial trip.

I have to say I am super excited as I've always wanted to go to Alaska and Yup'ik is indeed my favorite language (and because I get to see and play with billions of huskies while I’m there I hope). My aim for this blog is to make posts everyday to keep you all informed on what I'm doing but while I will try, I make no promises, as I don’t know if I'll have regular internet access. After this trip then, I might continue making posts just discussing languages and linguistics and what I'm learning in school, and perhaps on my teaching experiences next semester since I failed to do so last semester (sorry sis).

To all my fellow linguists who are also heading off this summer to do fieldwork, good luck! And to everyone else I hope you find this blog interesting and thanks for following along! As they say in Italy: “In Bocca al lupo” (into the wolf's mouth (here we go/beak a leg/ goodluck))!