Grandmother and Granddaughter Work to Preserve the Inupiaq Language

Gwendolyn MacLean won first place in the Junior Division of the Individual Performance category at the Alaska NHD state contest. Her project was about her grandmother and was titled “My Language, My Culture: Edna MacLean Takes a Stand to Preserve Inupiaq Language”. She is in the sixth grade at Bayshore Elementary School in Anchorage, Alaska. Edna MacLean, Gwen’s grandmother, taught and developed the program for the Inupiaq language at the University of Alaska Fairbanks for more than two decades. Edna MacLean received an NEH grant in 1988 to support the transcription and translation of a collection of legends and stories of the Inupiat people.