Eyak language
Eyak was a Na-Dené language, historically spoken by the Eyak people, indigenous to south-central Alaska, near the mouth of the Copper River. The name Eyak comes from a Chugach Sugpiaq name (Igya'aq) for an Eyak village at the mouth of the Eyak River.
| Eyak | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | [ʔiːjaːq] |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Cordova, Alaska |
| Ethnicity | Eyak |
| Extinct | January 21, 2008, with the death of Marie Smith Jones |
| Revival | Unknown, estimated around late 2019 |
Dené–Yeniseian?
| |
| Latin | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Alaska |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | eya |
| Glottolog | eyak1241 |
| ELP | Eyak |
Pre-contact distribution of Eyak | |
The closest relatives of Eyak are the Athabaskan languages. The Eyak–Athabaskan group forms a basic division of the Na-Dené language family, the other being Tlingit.
Numerous Tlingit place names along the Gulf Coast are derived from names in Eyak; they have obscure or even nonsensical meanings in Tlingit, but oral tradition has maintained many Eyak etymologies. The existence of Eyak-derived Tlingit names along most of the coast towards southeast Alaska is strong evidence that the prehistoric range of Eyak was once far greater than it was at the time of European contact. This confirms both Tlingit and Eyak oral histories of migration throughout the region.