Last month, Moses Marr’aq Wiseman was helping with Yup’ik translation at the Anchorage shelters that hosted evacuees from the recent Western Alaska strom. On hand, he had a new glossary with Yup’ik words for behavioral health terms.
Wiseman, who is originally from Chefornak, said the glossary was a useful resource for supporting people who might not be used to talking about mental health.
“When you're not of the Western culture, when you have a culture of your own that's not a part of American culture, it's a taboo thing to talk about behavioral health and mental health care,” he said. “So having this available, when it was available, it's just an ease of mind I think.”
Wiseman is the Alaska Native languages program director at the Alaska Institute for Justice, a nonprofit that supports Alaskans’ human rights. Last month, the organization released the new online glossary. People can type in modern health-related terms, read the translations and listen to how they’re pronounced.
Wiseman said the free resource should help Yup’ik interpreters and service providers to break down language barriers and help their clients to better understand their health and health care system.
Central Alaskan Yup'ik is the most widely used Alaska Native language, with around 10,000 speakers in the Western part of the state, according to data from the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Indra Arriaga, the Institute for Justice’s strategic and operational director, said that all Yup’ik speakers can benefit from the glossary, especially those who experience a stigma around talking about depression or suicidal thoughts.
“This is a way of getting information and not feeling like you're exposing yourself,” she said. “It's out there. It's reliable. It's in your language. It's a door.”
Arriaga says the glossary was a collaborative project with Yup’ik speakers, and it’s been years in the making.
The project was funded by a grant from the Alaska Department of Health. The organization trained interpreters in medical terminology and practices and then consulted nurses, doctors and other health care professionals to put together a list of widely used behavioral health terminology.
A panel of Yup'ik translators discussed the list, looking for the best ways to translate the terms – or come up with a new word for a concept that doesn’t exist in Yup’ik.
“It's a living language, so it's a living process, and it's going to be a living glossary,” Arriaga said.
The Institute for Justice is now looking for funding to complete the next phase of the project, which will be a similar glossary but for terms relevant for emergency care and intake.
Arriaga said that the original plan was to launch the mental health glossary on Nov. 1. But when the remnants of the Typhoon Halong forced hundreds of people to evacuate to Anchorage, the organization decided to release it sooner.
She said the work with evacuees – and the use of the glossary – is just beginning.
“The care and the healing and the need of the folks who are here from Kipnuk and other villages is going to continue,” she said. “You don't have to go into it unprepared.”
