Anna Berge

Director of Alaska Native Language Archive
Professor of Linguistics

Brooks 421

(907) 474-5351
amberge@alaska.edu

Office Hours:
TBA

Curriculum Vitae

 anna_berge

Anna Berge received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1997. She has specialized in West Greenlandic and Unangam Tunuu (Aleut) and does theoretical and descriptive work in syntax and discourse. She is currently working on comparative Eskimo-Aleut linguistics, Aleut language documentation, and Aleut language learning materials.

Specializations

I specialize in the documentation, description, and history of the Eskimo-Aleut languages, especially in the areas of morphosyntax, discourse, typology, and prehistoric language contact.  I have worked with communities in Russia, Alaska, Eastern Canada, and Greenland, although my focus has been on Unangam Tunuu. As it is Unangam Tunuu is currently highly endangered, my work has included being actively engaged in language maintenance and revitalization activities, and on the long-term archival preservation of the results of documentation. 

Key specialties:  Documentation and description, Eskimo-Aleut, language contact in prehistory, morphosyntax and typology, language maintenance and revitalization, language archiving.

Classes Taught

I teach classes in the following subjects at both undergraduate and graduate levels:  Morphology, Semantics, Field Methods, Community Language Documentation Language Contact, Language Contact in Prehistory (focusing on the North Pacific Coast), Eskimo-Aleut Linguistics, Unangax虃 Language and Culture, and Documentation and Archives.

Current Research

Language Contact in Prehistory along the North Pacific Coast

My current focus is in understanding the nature of the historical development of Unangam Tunuu, its divergence from the Eskimoan branch of the family, and the factors that encouraged this divergence.  This work is highly multidisciplinary, and involves results from the fields of linguistics, archaeology, genetics, paleo-environmental studies, and ethnohistory, and the geographical area that includes the current homelands of the Unangan, Sugpiat, Dena鈥檌na, Eyak, and Tlingit. 

Selected Publications
Articles
  • , Language Dispersal Beyond Farming
  • , Linguistic Discovery
  • , Proceedings of the 14th Inuit Studies Conference 
  •  Dynamics of Insubordination
  •   Revue Amerindia
  • Polysynthesis in Aleut (Unangam Tunuu).  Linguistic Typology of the North 3
  • Object Reduction in Aleut.  Asian and African Languages and Linguistics 7: Transitivity and Its Related Phenomena
  •  Linguistic Discovery.
  • Adequacy in Documentation.  Language Documentation:  Practice and Values
  • Unexpected Non-Anaphoric Marking in Aleut.  Rara & Rarissima: Documenting the fringes of linguistic diversity
  •  Journal of Historical Linguistics
  • Reexamining the Linguistic Prehistory of Aleut (Unangam Tunuu). Digging For Words: Archaeolinguistic Case Studies from the XV Nordic TAG Conference Held at the University of Copenhagen
  • Subsistence Terms in Unangam Tunuu (Aleut).  Language Dispersal Beyond Farming
  • Origins of Linguistic Diversity in the Aleutian Islands.  Human Biology
Publications
  •