Lecture Will Highlight Early Language Learning

Brianna Gibbs/KMXT

Folks will have an opportunity to learn about early Alutiiq language learning this Thursday during a lecture at the Alutiiq Museum.
Well before current language revitalization efforts, Russian colonists were some of the island’s first non-Native Alutiiq learners. According to a press release from the Alutiiq Museum, the language was solely oral for thousands of years, but with the arrival of those Russian explorers, Russian Cyrillic characters were used for publishing written word.
Daria Safronova is a local Russian archivist and will talk about those early appearances of Alutiiq on paper and some of the research she’s been doing. She’ll share historical documents and some of the earliest examples of Alutiiq text.
The lecture, Russian Alutiiq Cyrillic Archival Treasures, is free to the public and will begin at 7 p.m. on Thursday in the Alutiiq museum as part of the Fall lecture series.