Eyak — dAXunhyuugaʼ

• People / language: Eyak people (self-name dAXunhyuu, "the people"); Eyak language — a coordinate branch beside Athabaskan in the Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit family, not itself Athabaskan (Alaska Native Language Archive)
• Region: South-central Alaska coast — Copper River Delta, Cordova / Eyak, east to Yakutat, USA

STATUS

Extinct as a native-speaker language (2008); now classified Dormant, with an active reawakening effort. UNESCO's Atlas announcement (2009) listed Eyak among languages that had recently become extinct, in 2008 with the death of Marie Smith Jones. On the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) Eyak is now graded 9 (Dormant) — no native speakers, but a heritage community and second-language learners exist. Both labels are recorded here because both are in use by their authorities; this register does not flatten them into one.

THE COUNT

• 21 January 2008: the last native speaker died. Marie Smith Jones (born Cordova, 14 May 1918) died aged 89 at her home in Anchorage. Michael Krauss, University of Alaska Fairbanks: "With her death, the Eyak language becomes extinct." (Associated Press, 23 Jan 2008.)
• About 50 people: the Alaska Native Language Center figure reported at her death for Eyak people remaining by the 21st century (AP, 2008); the Alaska Native Language Archive states Eyak "is now represented by about 50 people but no surviving fluent speakers" (ANLA overview, accessed Oct 2026).
• Earlier village counts (US census record, via the Eyak history): Alaganik village 117 in 1880, 48 in 1890; total Eyak population estimated at 60 in 1900; 120 partial Eyak descendants in Cordova as of 1996.

WHAT HAPPENED

• Disease — smallpox and influenza "tore through the Eyak Nation… wiping out just about everyone but her family," per Jones's daughter Bernice Galloway (AP, 2008). Regular conversation in Eyak ceased after the death of Minnie Stevens, mother of Marie and Sophie, in March 1961 (Krauss, history of Eyak documentation).
• Assimilation by neighbours and by English — pressure and intermarriage with Tlingit to the east (Yakutat was predominantly Tlingit-speaking by about 1800) and Chugach pressure to the west shrank Eyak territory; the spread of English, and of Tlingit, replaced Eyak in daily life.
• Economic displacement — American canneries competed with Eyak fishers for the Copper River salmon on which the villages depended.

WHAT SURVIVES

• Michael Krauss's documentation, from the 1960s onward (Alaska Native Language Archive, University of Alaska Fairbanks): the 1970 Eyak dictionary, texts and traditional stories, and his edition of the stories and poetic compositions of Anna Nelson Harry; recordings by Robert Austerlitz (1961) and Krauss (1963–75) with speakers including Marie Smith Jones, Anna Nelson Harry, and Lena Saska Nacktan.
• The Eyak Language Project / dAXunhyuugaʼ revitalisation: community effort to revive Eyak as a living spoken language from the Krauss materials — online dictionary with audio, e-learning lessons, immersion workshops, and the annual Eyak Culture Camp in Cordova (August).
• Guillaume Leduey, who taught himself Eyak from Alaska Native Language Center materials from age 12, travelled to Alaska in June 2010, worked with Krauss, and from June 2011 led workshops in Anchorage and Cordova; he is now regarded as a fluent second-language speaker, translator, and instructor, providing instruction and curriculum assistance to the Eyak Language Project (Anchorage Daily News reporting, June 2010–2011). A later community project set out to support at least six Eyak learners to fluency working with Leduey (Native Conservancy / Pawanka Fund project description, 2022) — that is a project goal, not a speaker count, and is recorded as such.

SOURCES

• Associated Press (Mary Pemberton), "Last native speaker of Eyak… dies," 23 Jan 2008 — death date and age, Krauss statement, ANLC figure of about 50.
• Alaska Native Language Archive, University of Alaska Fairbanks, "Overview of the Eyak Language" — family classification, about 50 people, no surviving fluent speakers, Krauss documentation since the 1960s.
• UNESCO, Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger announcement / UNESCO Courier (2009) — Eyak extinct in 2008 with the death of Marie Smith Jones.
• Michael Krauss, "History of Eyak Language Documentation and Study" (2006, with addenda) — 1961 end of regular conversation; Jones the last native speaker.
• Eyak language revival reporting (Anchorage Daily News, June 2010; June 2011) — Leduey.