Eyak

Eyak is a moribund Na-Dené language that was historically spoken in southcentral Alaska, near the mouth of the Copper River.Marie Smith (born 1918) of Cordova is the language's last speaker. She was also the last full blooded Eyak. Because of the dying off of its native speakers, Eyak has become a poster child for the fight against language extinction.It should be noted that the spread of English and suppression of aboriginal languages by American authorities are not the only reason for the decline of the Eyak language. The northward migration of the Tlingit people around Yakutat in precontact times encouraged the use of Tlingit rather than Eyak along much of the Pacific Coast of Alaska. Eyak was also under pressure from its neighbors to the west, the Alutiiq people of Prince William Sound, as well as some pressure from the people of the Copper River valley. Eyak and Tlingit culture began to merge along the Gulf Coast, and a number of Eyak speaking groups were absorbed by the Gulf Coast Tlingit populations. This resulted in the replacement of Eyak by Tlingit among most of the mixed groups after a few generations, as reported in Tlingit oral histories of the area. This process was however entirely voluntary, in stark contrast to the coercive efforts of the U.S. government during the territorial era.
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