Frontiers 164: Unangam Tunuu: More Than Just Words

Imagine for a moment that there are only six people left in all the world with whom you can converse with that your homeland had been overwhelmed with another language, used to oppress you. Thats the relationship St. Paul Island has had with English. Elders say they were punished in school for speaking their language, Unangam Tunuu the same elders who survived harsh treatment by the U. S. Government, who exploited their labor to harvest seals for the fur trade. As the number of fluent speakers on