Administrative/Biographical History
Constance Naish and Gillian Story are linguists, now retired, involved with the Summer Institute of Linguistics / Wycleffe Bible Translators who intensively studied and documented the Tlingit language from 1959 to the early 1970’s. They developed the modern Tlingit orthography, which still in use with a few modifications. They lived in Angoon and worked most closely with Robert Zuboff (Shaadaax’) and George Betts (Asxh’aak) (Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer, Haa Shuká, 1987). According to Haa Shuká, the work of Naish and Story includes “scientific research, especially their MA Theses (1966) on morphology (Story) and syntax (Naish); design and teaching of a popular alphabet; religious publications, including hymns and Bible Stories, and especially the Gospel of John; educational publications, especially the Tlingit Noun Dictionary and Tlingit Verb Dictionary which includes an extremely valuable “Grammar Sketch.” Their work also includes Athabascan languages in Northwest Territories, Canada.
