Nanwalek
Two members of our big Ninilchik family moved to the English Bay-Port Graham area and raised their families there. They were children of John Kvasnikoff and his wife Fekla Oskolkoff of Ninilchik: their son, Sarjus, and their daughter, Alma. Sarjus married Juanita Moonin, daughter of the Russian Orthodox priest who served the English Bay-Port Graham area, and Alma married Joe Tanape, also from that area.
For many recent years these villages have been more widely known by their English names, English Bay and Port Graham. But a dialect of Eskimo, called Sugtestun, has been spoken in these communities for even longer. It is still spoken today, especially by people who are approximately 30 years old and older. And there is a good effort being made in the school system to teach the Eskimo language to the children.
In their Native tongue the people of English Bay refer to where they live as Nanwalek. Today you may address a letter to English Bay, using the Homer, Alaska, zip code (99603), and it will get to English Bay just fine. (Probably some day English Bay and Port Graham will each have their own zip codes.) But if you get a letter back from English Bay, today, the postmark will not say "English Bay", but, instead, "Nanwalek." And that is what the residents there call their town. That's good! The real name of the place, as spoken by the people who live there, is now being used by the post office.
Nanwalek means "Place With the Lagoon". In the Sugtestun language nanok means "lake" or "lagoon", and the name of the place is derived from this word.
Sugtestun is a dialect of Yupik Eskimo. This would have differences from the Inupiat Eskimo spoken around Nome and other northern parts of Alaska. One of our Kvasnikoff cousins, who teaches her language in the school at Nanwalek, says they can understand some of the Kodiak language and some words from the Nome area, but the Aleut language spoken farther to the southwest on the Aleutian Islands is quite different so they can't understand that.
Return to Agrafena's Children main page
Return to the main page
This page hosted by 
Get your own Free Home Page