The last full-blooded Alaskan Eyak Indian and fluent speaker of her native language, has died at the age of 89
Marie Smith Jones worked to preserve the Eyak language, a branch of the Athabaskan Indian family of languages, said Michael Krauss, a linguist who collaborated with her.
She wanted a written record of the language so future generations would have the chance to resurrect it, said Krauss, director of the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The two compiled an Eyak dictionary and book of grammar, and Ms Jones, her sister and a cousin told him Eyak tales that were compiled in a book.
"With her death, the Eyak language becomes extinct," Mr Krauss said. In all, he said, nearly 20 native Alaskan languages are at risk of the same fate.
The Eyak ancestral homeland runs along 300 miles of the Gulf of Alaska from Prince William Sound in south-central Alaska eastward to the town of Yakutat.