Eyak

Last speaker died January 2008.

"It is altogether clear that the origin of the name 'Eyak' is the local Chugach Eskimo name of the Eyak village site near the mouth of the Eyak River on Eyak Lake at Mile 6, in Chugach Igya’aq. In this the initial I- is pronounced as the -i- in sing, the -g- as a voiced fricative gamma, and the -ya’aq has not the vowel of yak as in the English pronuncia- tion of the name, but rhymes more or less rather with hawk, except that the final consonant is of course the Eskimo-Aleut back velar -q, not mid- mouth English -k." (Krauss 2006: 199)