The Gwich'in language is one of the largest and most unique of the Northern Athabascan language family. Although the language is severely endangered, there is enormous interest in language revitalization withinthe Gwich'in community. These efforts are supported in part by Gwich'in language courses at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. However, in spite of a rich history of linguistic documentation of Gwich'in, there is no accessible reference or pedagogical grammar of Gwich'in. In fact, there is no published comprehensive grammatical description for any of the eleven Athabascan languages of Alaska.
With funding from NSF this project will create a pedagogical grammar of the Gwich'in language for use by students and scholars. The grammar will serve as a key component of the developing Gwich'in language curriculum at the Alaska Native Language Center. In addition, the grammar will provide a primary scholarly resource documenting the structure of a typologically unusual language. The grammar will be accompanied by a Curriculum Guide to aid in the teaching of Gwich'in grammar in language classes. This guide may serve as a model that may be adapted for other languages. In addition, interested K-12 language teachers and language learners may find the model beneficial for their own use.
