Tongass Voices: Dak júus Rob Yates on teaching and learning the Haida language

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Tongass Voices: Dak júus Rob Yates on teaching and learning the Haida language
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Dak júus Rob Yates teaches the language of the Haida people, X̱aad Kíl. According to the most recent statewide report, there is only one person alive who has spoken X̱aad Kíl since birth. There are two other highly proficient speakers. Yates says he isn’t one of them yet, but he’s still working to breathe life into the language.

Dak júus Rob Yates teaches X̱aad Kíl, the language of the Haida people. Courtesy of Dak júus Rob Yates

Yates has moved several times to do this work. Now, he lives in Craig and has been concurrently learning and teaching the language for nearly a decade.I think it’s a really rewarding journey. I think it’s a healing journey. For me. It never gets boring, because there’s so much to learn. So I get excited each time I find out something new. It’s kind of like Christmas, getting something new.My Haida name is Dak júus. It literally means small shrimp.

I became homeless for a short time. Along came this Our Language Pathways Program by where they wanted Lingit Haidas and Tsimshian to learn their languages and become teachers. One of my distant relatives in Juneau, I reached out to her, and she’s like, “This program is, it’s like it’s tailor made for you.” So I took it serious, and that summer, I started building up curriculum. The requirement was that you had to live in Juneau on the campus.

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