Eyak, Version 1

The dAXunhuyuu (Eyak) section of the Atlas of the Alaska Native Place Names Project is a prototype—a working version intended to demonstrate the potential of digital cultural heritage mapping. The Eyak language and its people have often been overlooked by outsiders, especially during the American period following the Alaska “purchase.” Eyak place names cover a vast territory along the North Gulf Coast of Alaska coast from Prince William Sound to beyond Yakutat Bay. At its margins this territory overlaps with places also named in Chugach and in Tlingit, reflecting the multicultural nature of traditional Alaska Native society in this region.

The corpus of place names in this Atlas draws from archival information preserved at the Alaska Native Language Archive. Names have been adapted into the modern orthography and their spellings reviewed with linguist Michael Krauss. Where possible we have attempted to identify those names which have been borrowed from nearby languages.