Published December 26, 2025 at 10:53 AM AKST
Alaina Kuupaaq Bankston has loved making art since she was a child. Now that she has a child of her own, she said she wants to use her art to help him learn the Iñupiaq language.
Bankston is an Utqiaġvik artist who recently received a Rasmuson award to create a workbook that will do just that. She will spend a year designing and illustrating a primer for children that teaches the Iñupiaq alphabet and numbers.
The workbook is just the most recent example of efforts to revitalize the language that have been sweeping across northern Alaska. Another one is an Iñupiaq version of the popular game Wordle, which [was launched by linguists](https:…
Published December 26, 2025 at 10:53 AM AKST
Alaina Kuupaaq Bankston has loved making art since she was a child. Now that she has a child of her own, she said she wants to use her art to help him learn the Iñupiaq language.
Bankston is an Utqiaġvik artist who recently received a Rasmuson award to create a workbook that will do just that. She will spend a year designing and illustrating a primer for children that teaches the Iñupiaq alphabet and numbers.
The workbook is just the most recent example of efforts to revitalize the language that have been sweeping across northern Alaska. Another one is an Iñupiaq version of the popular game Wordle, which was launched by linguists a few years ago.
Bankston says her 4-year-old son Qalayauq was her inspiration for the project.
"It all kind of started with creating for him and being able to use those resources," she said. "So now that he’s getting into the workbooks, so I’m like, oh, I need to create a workbook."
Bankston grew up learning Iñupiaq in school and she says she is still on her own language learning journey. She practices speaking with elders and uses dictionaries and the Rosetta Stone app.
But Bankston said that children learn differently than adults, and she wanted to create educational materials that catered to the youngest learners.
"Like you start kindergarten, you have the whole workbook, you’re learning the alphabet, the numbers, the colors, and we have all that in English," she said. "What if we had that in Inupiaq? So that’s just, that’s what I’d like to create."
Bankston said some resources for learning Iñupiaq are available through the North Slope Borough School District. But she said regular parents might not have access to them.
"It’s really born out of necessity," she said. "I’m sure there are resources out there. I’m sure there are things, but they’re not something you could just go pick up at a store or buy online."
Aside from Bankston’s idea to create a workbook, other projects on the North Slope also strive to revitalize the Iñupiaq language. Two years ago, the school district restarted its Inupiaq immersion program, and a few years before that, Alaska Native linguists created a digital Inupiaq dictionary.
"I think it’s a really important journey, and I think we’ve been making big strides recently," Bankston said. "With the history of it, it’s definitely a dying language, but I think it’s important we keep it alive."
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