Artifact of the Month: February 2023

An Unlikely Resource

According to the Alaska Native Language Center in Fairbanks, there are 20 distinct Indigenous languages spoken in the state. Each of these languages is threatened to some degree as the number of fluent speakers decline. Tribal members, preservationists, and a variety of government and non-profit agencies are working to revitalize languages before it is too late. Modern technologies, like cellphone apps, are helping to make basic skills such as learning an alphabet and common phrases more accessible. To understand pronunciations and word inflections it is critical to hear audio recordings, if they exist, of people actually speaking the language. Ironically, one valuable resource for early audio recordings comes from missionary work that was geared towards cultural assimilation.

Joy Ridderhof, a Quaker missionary, started Gospel Recordings, Inc. in Los Angeles in the late 1930s. The mission was to share religious messages through audio recordings. Portable record players became popular with missionaries because they were easy to operate and could withstand heavy use. Likewise, records were easy and cheap to press. Ridderhof's project took off in the Spanish-speaking countries of South America. By 1940, they had started recording in North America with the Navajo Nation in Arizona. Ridderhof herself and fellow missionary Ann Sherwood came to Alaska in 1947. They recorded approximately 21 languages and dialects, including Lingít (Tlingit), X?aad Kíl (Haida), and Sm'algyax (Tsimshian). Seven vinyl records from this project were donated to Ketchikan Museums -4 are Tsimshian and 3 are Haida. Each record contains roughly 8 minutes of gospels spoken in the Indigenous language. Through a Collections Management Fund grant from Museums Alaska with support from the Rasmuson Foundation, all seven records are digitized, along with almost 500 hours of other audio resources.

Now known as Global Recordings Network, the massive missionary outreach network has recorded over 6,000 languages and dialects from 257 countries. Recordings are available on their website to play and download here: https://globalrecordings.net/en/download

Ketchikan Museums, KM 2020.2.64.1