Earlier this month I had the opportunity to visit
C'ek'aedi Hwnax, the Ahtna Cultural Center in Copper Center. C'ek'aedi Hwnax was dedicated last March as both a repository of cultural heritage and a center for educational outreach. My own visit was concerned with one particular aspect of this mission: the development of an Ahtna language archive. The staff at C'ek'aedi Hwnax is now engaged in a two-year project funded in part by the
Institute of Museum and Library Services to create a digital archive of Ahtna Athabascan language recordings.
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| Taña Finnesand, Markle Pete, and Karen Linnell |
Local language archives play several crucial roles in language revitalization efforts. First, they can serve as gateways to larger repositories, providing local access to documents and recordings which would not otherwise be easily accessible in the community. C'ek'aedi Hwnax has partnered with the
Alaska Native Language Archive in Fairbanks to make available digital copies of all of the Ahtna recordings housed there. In this way CH helps to achieve a kind of digital repatriation, bringing back recordings which were originally made in the community. But as a local language archive C'ek'aedi Hwnax does more than just provide access to other collections, it also serves as a repository for local recordings, accepting deposits from community members. Because it is located within the community and run by the community, C'ek'aedi Hwnax can better honor and respect and implement access restrictions put on recordings by depositors. They can also work closely with depositors to enrich the the descriptive metadata, identifying speakers and stories and even assisting with translation.
What makes C'ek'aedi Hwnax unique is that it serves these local needs while also adhering to international standards in digital language archives. The staff at C'ek'aedi Hwnax have worked closely with linguist Andrea Berez to ensure that their archiving practices follow recognized archival procedures. These days anyone can digitize language recordings using off-the-shelf equipment, but it is another thing entirely to ensure that these recordings are preserved properly for access by future generations. The best way to do this is to collaborate with other digital archiving efforts for endangered languages; C'ek'aedi Hwnax will soon become the first local language archive in Alaska to join the
Open Language Archives Community.
The C'ek'aedi Hwnax language archive is a model for local language archiving efforts elsewhere in Alaska and beyond. By supporting this effort the Ahtna Heritage Foundation has shown a real vision for the future of Native language in Alaska. The dedicated and professional staff deserves credit for turning this vision into a reality.
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| Tana Mae Pete demonstrates the digitizing station |
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| C'ek'aedi Hwnax |
