FAIRBANKS — Most of the 2012 legislative session has focused on securing Alaska’s future — through oil tax reform, natural gas and better education — but on Tuesday the Senate State Affairs Committee heard testimony on preserving part of Alaska’s heritage — Native languages.

During testimony for a measure that would establish the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council many experts and Native advocates told the Senate that Alaska Native languages — a bastion of Native culture and identity — are at risk of going extinct and need protection.

The measure, proposed by Democratic Nome Sen. Donny Olson, would create a council that would assess the state’s language policy and programs and look for ways to create new programs to protect and promote Native languages.

“It is felt throughout the indigenous tribes statewide that Alaska Native languages are threatened by extinction,” an aide to Olson told the committee. “The intent of SB 130 is to preserve, maintain and restore Alaska Native languages.”

Many of the experts providing testimony said that after years of decline at the hands of modernization, unfriendly policies and social pressure, Native languages are at the brink of disappearing. The language council, they said, would not only preserve the language, but what the languages represent culturally.

Fairbanks resident Joy Huntington spoke in favor the council, saying it represents a significant part of Native culture.

“Here in the Interior we fully support SB 130,” she said. “Our languages are struggling, this is a similar crisis situation to a flood or a fire. ... I personally don’t speak my own language and that’s a crisis in my own mind.”

The University of Alaska Fairbanks is home to the Alaska Native Language Center, which focuses on studying and preserving Native languages, and its director, Lawrence Kaplan, shared his thoughts on what the council could do for the culture.

“It could give an official voice to Alaska Native languages within the government,” he said.

Kaplan added the center and the council could work hand-in-hand to study and advocate for the protection of Native languages, which he sees as in danger of disappearing.

“The Alaska Native languages are severely endangered with decreasing numbers of speakers most of whom are very elderly,” he said. “It is appropriate and necessary for the state to address this situation.”

Throughout the morning’s testimony, multiple people brought up Eyak, a Native language that went extinct when Marie Smith Jones, the last speaker of Eyak, passed away in 2008.

Sealaska Heritage Institute Director Dr. Rosita Worl said the council would be integral to ensuring the future of Alaska Native languages, but that immediate action’s needed.

“Unless remedial action is initiated most of all Alaska Native languages will join their already extinct linguistic relative, Eyak, within a few decades,” she said.