The K'alyaan Totem Pole of the Tlingit Kiks.ádi Clan, erected to commemorate those lost in the 1804 Battle of Sitka. ©2005 Robert A. Estremo

In an effort to save the dying Alaskan language Tlingit, English professor and award-winning author Ernestine Hayes will publish a children’s book written in the rare tongue. Hayes, who also acts as historian for her mother’s Tlingit tribe, based her story on the classic tale of the town mouse and the country mouse, and tells of the adventures that a forest bear has when he visits a relative who lives in town. City Bear, Forest Bear or Aanka Xóodzi ka Aasgutu Xóodzi Shkalneegi, as the book is titled in Tlingit, was translated from English with the help of Tlingit elders and is illustrated by Tlingit artist Wanda Culp. “As far as we know, this book is the first to be originally written in English and then translated into the Tlingit language,” the author tells The Guardian in an interview.

The Tlingit language is at serious risk for extinction, as it is spoken by only about 500 people today. Hayes’ hope is to keep this language from fading away by teaching it to younger generations with books like hers. However, the process of translating this primarily oral language into written words was a challenge, even with the elders’ help.

“People who learned Tlingit as their first language learned to read English and never learned to read Tlingit,” the writer explains. Also, because Tlingit pre-dates modern life, it does not have words for many common objects today, like cars and hamburgers, so the translators had to come up with creative ways to describe these items.

Currently, there is a strong movement in south east Alaska to revive the Tlingit language with students of all ancestries. Hayes’ book will be a part of this push with the help from a grant from the Association of Alaska School Board’s Initiative for Community Engagement, which will enable distribution of free copies of the book to teachers and students of the Tlingit language.

“Clearly, if the language is to continue to live and breathe, it must find a way to take its nourishment from the here and now,” states the book’s publisher Liz Dodd. “While tourists may pick this book up off of the local bookstore shelves for its novelty value, those of us who grew up in Tlingit Aani (land) will not only see ourselves in these bears but hear our story told in linguistic tones as natural to our ear as the susurrus of waves meeting the beach – even if today those waves often come off of a cruise ship’s wake.”

An English version of the book, and an audiobook version in Tlingit are also scheduled for release.