A new app, Tlingit Games, brings you into the world of wildlife. Choose \u201cBirds!\u201d and you watch hummingbirds, kingfishers and Stellar\u2019s Jays fly in and out of a wooded scene of other birds. Press any one of them and you hear the Tlingit pronunciation over a soundscape of bird song and calls.<\/p>\n
When you get comfortable with the Tlingit words of different birds, you can take the quiz. Beginner Tlingit speaker Alfie Price, 49, and his 17-year-old daughter Katy have been competing against each other to see who can get a higher score.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s been beating me pretty soundly, especially the birds,\u201d Price said. \u201cFor some reason, I struggle with the birds.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other game offered on the app is ocean animals. Each quiz question shows a picture of an animal and asks, \u201cDaa s\u00e1y\u00e1?\u201d or \u201cWhat is this?\u201d Press a multiple choice option and you may get an affirming \u201cAy\u00e1x<\/span> \u00e1w\u00e9\u201d and move on to the next question. Get a not so affirming \u201cTl\u00e9ik\u2019\u201d and you have to choose a different option.<\/p>\n Price downloaded Tlingit Games and Learning Tlingit on Monday as soon as he heard about them on Facebook. Sealaska Heritage Institute developed the two free apps and released them last week.<\/p>\n Price, who\u2019s Tlingit and Tsimshian, has been using Learning Tlingit on a daily basis. He started learning the language in April and goes to the Tlingit Language Learners Group on Monday nights at the downtown library. He\u2019s grateful to receive help from practiced speakers, but rarely do fluent speakers attend the group, he said.<\/p>\n Now, with the apps, Price can hear fluent speakers say Tlingit words and phrases right from his phone.<\/p>\n \u201cPronunciations are a big deal. Our mouths are so used to saying English that it\u2019s hard to adjust to Tlingit sounds. I will just repeat them over and over, hoping that my mouth will just be able to make these sounds easily if I just keep at it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The pronunciations on Learning Tlingit are based on audio from curriculum SHI has already developed. It was education project coordinator Katrina Hotch\u2019s job to listen to the audio tracks and cut them up into single vocabulary words, phrases and alphabet sounds, totalling about 300 entries total.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t a complete app. There\u2019s more content coming,\u201d Hotch said Wednesday at SHI. She plans to continue adding new entries to the app over the next two years.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the first batch, I was trying to focus on things that people are wanting to do when they first start learning, things that I thought would be most useful to learners and people who are teaching to have their students go back and listen to.\u201d<\/p>\n Vocabulary categories include numbers, family and geography. For phrases, you can hear and learn introductions, feelings, and statements like \u201cTl\u00e9l x<\/span>wasak\u00fa\u201d or \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n SHI worked with Wostmann & Associates, starting in January, to develop the apps. Hotch said the apps make the Tlingit language more accessible.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are practically attached to their mobile devices,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you\u2019re waiting for the bus and you start playing Tlingit Games, you\u2019re going to be hearing it that much more often and be able to retain the information better and just increase your vocabulary through increased usage.\u201d<\/p>\n Price agreed, saying, \u201cOur phones are always with us. You can hear some Tlingit instead of checking your Facebook or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n The voices you hear on the app belong to fluent speakers David Katzeek (Kingeisti), the late Johnny Marks (K<\/span>ooteixt\u00e9e) and Marsha Hotch (G<\/span>uneiwt\u00ed). As SHI updates the app, it will include Nora Marks Dauenhauer (Keixwn\u00e9i), Fred White (G<\/span>unaak\u2019w) and the late June Pegues (Aan Yax Saxeex).<\/p>\n Hotch\u2019s work on the apps is contributing to others hearing and practicing the Tlingit language. But for Hotch herself \u2014 who describes herself as an intermediate Tlingit speaker \u2014 working on the project has profoundly affected her life.<\/p>\n \u201cI get to hear these voices of people that I didn\u2019t actually get to work with. Like I didn\u2019t actually get to work with Johnny [Marks], but I kind of feel like I know him because I\u2019ve heard his voice almost everyday at work here,\u201d she explained. \u201cA byproduct of working on these apps is I\u2019ve started dreaming more in Tlingit, and that\u2019s really exciting for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Connecting generations is another important function of the app. Haa shuk\u00e1, which means \u201cour past, present, future,\u201d is a core cultural value that helps guide the work SHI does, Hotch said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese apps have voices of people who have gone on, but people can hear it now and people in the future will be able to hear it. It\u2019s literally that connection between the past, present and future.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or lisa.phu@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n Read more news:<\/strong><\/p>\n After hundreds of years, Huna Tlingit return to ancestral homeland of Glacier Bay<\/a><\/p>\n Rough terrain complicates efforts to recover bodies in crash<\/a><\/p>\n