ames tie the present to the immemorial past. The founders of Alaska Native corporations kept this principle in mind when they devised brands to represent both their business interests and their communities. The organizations draw their names from (in most cases) the Indigenous languages of Alaska.

Since 2014, Alaska has had twenty-one official languages: English plus Iñupiaq, two forms of Yup’ik, Alutiiq/Sugt’stun (also spelled Sugcestun), Unangam Tunuu (Aleut), Tlingit, and fourteen other languages in the Dene, or Athabascan, family. The law that designated these languages as official was a step toward correcting past policies of active suppression. In the last decade, language revitalization programs have trained tribal members (and interested outsiders) in the speech of Alaska’s original peoples.

The first lesson might come from reading a news article about an organization with an Alaska Native name. Pronouncing the name correctly is a dip into the vast pool of language learning.

That doesn’t mean these names roll off the tongue. Even names from Alaska’s unofficial languages can be difficult for the unfamiliar. How might someone pronounce, say, “New Sagaya” if they had never heard it before? Or “Usibelli Coal Mine” or “Udelhoven Oilfield System Services.”

Then there’s the matter of simplifying names. My immemorial forebears in Germany used an “r” sound foreign to English, as the “rh” in my surname reminds me. German pronunciation also voices the last syllable of my surname, so the “e” is not silent (the former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Jason Brune, understands the cross I bear).

For some corporations, streamlining their Alaska Native names makes good business sense. They introduce themselves daily to potential clients or employees, so a nickname is a gesture of hospitality. Thus, Tanadgusix and K’oyitł’ots’ina Limited abbreviate themselves to “TDX” and “K Corp” for the comfort of English speakers nationwide. Sitnasuak Native Corporation even has offices in Puerto Rico, so “SNC” makes sense for Spanish speakers.

Consider this glossary a minimal introduction to Alaska Native languages. Although the Alaska Native Language Center at UAF and the state’s Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council employ experts, they would be the first to say that the best way to learn how to say someone’s name is to ask directly. This guide, however, should allow Alaskans to do business with, and read about, Alaska Native organizations with more linguistic confidence.

The apostrophe in Athabascan languages is a glottal stop; although it is not a “t” sound (in fact, the voice box makes no sound for a beat), glottal stops are familiar in American English as the implied “t” in “uh-oh.” However, this is ignored in “Dena’ina,” where the central vowel has been pronounced as the diphthong “eye” since its earlier spelling: Tanaina. The interchangeable “d” and “t” suggests a softer “t” sound than in English. The crossed “ł” in “K’oyitł’ots’ina” links it to the preceding “t” as one phoneme, the same “tl” in Nahuatl (Aztec) and in Navajo, to which the Native languages of Interior Alaska are more closely related than the Inuit-Yup’ik-Unangax̂ family on the northern and western coasts. Finally, the suffix “-ina” signifies “people,” common in many inhabited place names; however, “Chitina” derives from Tsedi Na’ (Copper River), so “ina” reduces to “na.”

Tlingit is in the Na-Dene family, the same as Athabascan languages, while Haida’s relationship is unclear. As in “Hydaburg,” the word “Haida” is uncomplicated, whereas “Tlingit” starts with a foreign sound: the alveolar lateral affricate. Tlingit is partially tonal, so the pitch of a vowel changes meaning. An acute accent indicates high tone; low tones are generally unmarked. For “Shee Atiká,” however, English speakers can get away with ignoring the accent. An apostrophe, as in Ch’aak’ (Eagle moiety), marks ejective consonants, pronounced with a puff of breath. Tlingit has glottal stops, too, which are marked with a period, as in Juneau-Douglas Yadaa.at Kalé High School. An underscore, as in G̱ooch naa (Wolf moiety), places the tongue against the uvula. An “x” is the Greek letter chi, spelled in German or Scottish as “ch.” The Tlingit writing system adds “w” to labialized consonants; the “kw” in Yak-tat Kwáan (people of Yakutat) is a simple example, posing no quandary for English speakers.

Unangam Tunuu is the language spoken by the Unangax̂—the circumflex over the “x” places the sound farther back than an unadorned “x,” which is literally the Greek letter chi, spelled in German or Scottish as “ch.” As in other other Inuit-Yup’ik-Unangax languages, “g” is softer than in English, often spelled “gh” in other languages that use the sound; the dotted “g” used elsewhere is, in this language, topped with a circumflex instead. The writing system was formalized in 1972, and the name of the people and language has shifted within the last twenty years. “Ounalashka” and “Unalaska” are the same word, but the former reflects Russian influence (Unangam Tunuu has no “sh” sound, and “o” is only in borrowed words).

The word “Alutiiq” is used by the indigenous people of the Alaska Peninsula, Kodiak archipelago, and Prince William Sound who, along with the Unangax̂ of the Aleutian Islands, had been misidentified by Russian colonists as Aleuts. The language is more closely related to Yugtun (Central Alaskan Yup’ik). Common to the Inuit-Yup’ik-Unangax̂ family, the terminal “q” sound is more guttural than a “k” sound in English. “Chugach” is not to be confused with the Dena’ina Athabascan “Chugiak,” although that place is near the mountains named for the Alutiiq-speaking Chugach Sugpiaq people. Koniag is certainly an Alutiiq organization, yet the name seems to stem from what the Unangax̂ called their neighbors. The corporation for Woody Island, Leisnoi (pronounced “LEZH-noy”), is also an exonym, meaning simply “woody” in Russian.

Iñupiaq (the adjective) and Iñupiat (the plural noun) both contain the “enye” sound familiar to Spanish. The writing system also uses “ŋ” which is the same “ng” as in English (and “English”). The “q” is like a “k” (and was originally written with a “k”) but is more guttural. A dotted “g” is more guttural still, the same sound spelled with “r” in Parisian French, suggesting how far back in the throat it comes from. Even an undotted “g” is velar (from the back of the tongue), softer than “g” in English. Which one is in “Olgoonik”? The old spelling of the Iñupiaq name for Wainwright, Ulġuniq, provides a clue.

Yup’ik is one of a group of languages within the Inuit-Yup’ik-Unangax̂ (or Eskimo-Aleut) family. An apostrophe indicates an elongated consonant, which is similar to, but not exactly like, the glottal stop marked by an apostrophe in Athabascan languages. The group includes Siberian Yup’ik on St. Lawrence Island; Central Alaskan Yup’ik (or Yugtun) spoken mostly inland; and Cup’ik in Chevak and along the coast. Right away, “c” makes a “ch” sound; Choggiung is an alternate spelling of “Curyung” and is pronounced the same; notice that “gg” suggests an r-ish sound. Also notice that “v” in “Calivika” approximates a “w” sound. The suffix “-miut” (also Anglicized to “-mute”) means “inhabitants of”; “nuna” means “land” in the sense of ground, place, country, and village.