Description
Father Ioann Veniaminov (1797-1879) was the greatest of the Russian Orthodox missionaries to Alaska. A man of enormous linguistic talents, Veniaminov created an alphabet for the Unangan (Aleut) language and, with the help of the Aleut chief Ivan Pan'kov, wrote and published in 1834 an Aleut catechism, the first book published in an Alaskan native language. As Bishop Innokentii, Veniaminov encouraged the study of Tlingit and a variety of Aleut-Eskimo dialects such as Atkan and Central Yup'ik. This work, published in Moscow in 1840, contains religious teachings by ...