Maanillu, akmanillu: Community-led, Iterative Development of Tools for Language Documentation and Reclamation

Benjamin T. Hunt

Advisor: Sylvia L.R. Woodrose Schwartz, PhD, Department of English

Committee Members: Lane Woodrose Schwartz, Matthew C. Kelley

Online Location, https://gmu.zoom.us/j/99675880628?pwd=XDWoFIBbfvfwy3uWtBbUdhmGR89BqW.1
July 28, 2025, 04:00 PM to 07:00 PM

Abstract:

The community of Akuzipik speakers on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska is actively engaged in a language reclamation project spanning multiple decades. In an effort to reduce community dependence on visiting linguists and empower Akuzipik speakers to contribute to community-led reclamation projects, this work describes the development of a suite of digital tools (lexical database, dictionary, word-builder) for the documentation and exploration of language data informed by a critical survey of the literature on Indigenous epistemologies and first-hand input from community speakers of Akuzipik. Through a cycle of iterative development and community feedback, the tools described in this work address community desires and feature requests to create a set of tools that aligns closely with stated community goals and, crucially, places the linguistic and data sovereignty of that community at the forefront.

It is the primary conclusion of this work that the effective reclamation of a language can only be accomplished by empowered members of the speaker community itself, with additional aid given by visiting linguists only if requested. It is the desire of this researcher that this work, apart from its contributions to disciplinary theory, be taken as a declaration of intent to respect the desires of the Akuzipik community regarding their linguistic and cultural sovereignty, even to the potential detriment of that theory.