Alaska’s Native languages are spoken less frequently as a steady stream of young Alaska Natives leave their rural hometowns for work or school in Anchorage. But Ember Thomas, an education coordinator with the Alaska Native Heritage Center, says she hears the same question over and over again:

"Where can I learn my native language?"

Thomas says she didn’t use to have an easy answer for that question. But now, the center has received a $200,000 federal grant to track down language resources in Anchorage and throughout the state, and match them with prospective learners.

The Center is also trying to figure out which languages aren’t being taught at all. Of the more than 20 Alaska Native languages, almost all are endangered, with few surviving speakers. That’s why, eventually, the Center wants to start its own classes, teaching languages that aren’t available elsewhere.

"If we find that there are tons of resources for Inupiaq in Anchorage, and Yup’ik and Tsimshian, and there are no learners, then obviously those aren’t the languages we want to start teaching," Thomas says.

They’d need extra grants to pull it off, but Thomas says the center can prove there’s a need for more classes in Anchorage.

After all, that’s where more than a quarter of the state’s Alaska Native population lives -- and Thomas says that in the two weeks since she started surveying the city’s Alaska natives on the languages they’d like to learn, she’s already heard from 150 people.

She's also heard from plenty of people living outside of Anchorage. If the language classes take off, Thomas says the center would broadcast its lessons online to reach learners throughout the state.

The center can expect more input on the project in April, when they hold a summit on Native language revitalization.