Lingít Word of the Week: Yaana.eit — Wild Celery

This is Lingít Word of the Week. Each week, we feature a Lingít word voiced by master speakers. Lingít has been spoken throughout present-day Southeast Alaska and parts of Canada for over 10,000 years.

Gunalchéesh to X̱’unei Lance Twitchell, Goldbelt Heritage Foundation and the University of Alaska Southeast for sharing the recorded audio for this series.

This week’s word is yaana.eit, or wild celery. Listen to the audio below to learn how to say yaana.eit.

The following transcript is meant to help illustrate the words and sentences. 

Kooshdáakʼu Bill Fawcett: yaana.eit. 

That means wild celery.

Here are some sentences:

Kooshdáakʼu Bill Fawcett: Ḵúnáx̱ áwé yak’éi wé yaana.eit.

Wild celery is very good.

Keiyishí Bessie Cooley: Yaana.eit náakw yáx̱ yéi du.oowún.

People used to use wild celery like medicine.

Ḵaakal.áat Florence Marks Sheakley: Yées yaa kana.éini áyá yakʼéi yá yaana.eit.

This is good, young wild celery is growing here.

Kaxwaan Éesh George Davis: Yaana.eit wutuwax̱áa.

We ate wild celery.

You can hear each installment of Lingít Word of the Week on the radio throughout the week. 

Additional language resources:

Find biographies for the master speakers included in this lesson here.

Learn more about why we use Lingít instead of Tlingit here.

Watch a video introducing Lingít sounds here.