Koyukuk

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A large tributary of the Yukon River flowing through interior Alaska ; a small Native village situated near where that river meets the Yukon
2. A major river in central Alaska that joins the Yukon ; a tiny community on the banks of that waterway in the Alaskan interior
3. The long river that drains into the Yukon in Alaska ; a small settlement of Alaska Native residents located at the river's mouth

Etymology: Koyukuk is a river in interior Alaska, and the name belongs to the Koyukon Athabaskan language, the tongue of the people who have lived along it for centuries. The river's name is generally given as a Koyukon word whose exact meaning is uncertain, so any translation offered for it should be treated as tentative. Its earliest recorded forms came from Russian and other European traders and explorers who travelled the Yukon basin in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and they spelled it in many different ways as they tried to render an unfamiliar sound. The name passed into English through these written records rather than through any translation. Explorers and mapmakers adopted the spelling that became standard, and the river and the village at its mouth on the Yukon both kept it. The name is a good example of how place names often survive intact across languages while their original sense fades from view.