The Historical Perspective of the Upper Kuskokwim Language Development through the Prism of Family Stories

Student: Vinogradova Victoria

Educational Programme: Language Policy in the Context of Ethnocultural Diversity (Master)

Year of Graduation: 2021

Currently, about 14% of the Alaska population is indigenous. The Upper Kuskokwim people is considered to be one of the smallest, and the language of its heritage - Upper Kuskokwim - still does not have a detailed description. This paper aimed to describe the history of the Upper Kuskokwim language based on the stories of several generations of families of the Upper Kuskokwim people about their life and culture. Another aim is to find the reasons why the process of language shift was launched and continued in the future. In the present research the following methods were used: analysis of primary and secondary sources, biographical and genealogical method, method of coding, and method of qualitative analysis of sociolinguistic interviews.

Student Theses at HSE must be completed in accordance with the University Rules and regulations specified by each educational programme.

Summaries of all theses must be published and made freely available on the HSE website.

The full text of a thesis can be published in open access on the HSE website only if the authoring student (copyright holder) agrees, or, if the thesis was written by a team of students, if all the co-authors (copyright holders) agree. After a thesis is published on the HSE website, it obtains the status of an online publication.

Student theses are objects of copyright and their use is subject to limitations in accordance with the Russian Federation’s law on intellectual property.

In the event that a thesis is quoted or otherwise used, reference to the author’s name and the source of quotation is required.

Search all student theses