Tag Archives: Dying languages

Pertinent articles about dying indigenous lanugages in B.C.

To further my research for my final ETEC 590 paper, I am now using Google Scholar to start looking for articles that will support my topic of revitalizing the Shuswap language after the lost generation due to residential schools.

This first article, entitled “The Crisis of Silence” is by Alan Haig-Brown. One question that is raised is

“Why maintain the languages? However, for Indian people the answer is obviously one of individual self-identity and cultural continuity” (Haig-Brown, 1983)

http://prophet.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/bcstudies/article/viewFile/1149/1193

A second article that I found is entitled “You can’t kill Coyote stories of language healing from Chief Atahm School Secwepemc language immersion program” (Michel, 2005). I have selected this article since the Shuswap Immersion program in Chase B.C. (at the Chief Atahm School) was the first article that I came across that inspired me to continue my research on indigenous language immersion. This paper was written by a UBC doctorat student, which caught my attention. Again it focuses in exactly on my topic about dying languages and the story of the Chief Atahm Shuswap Immersion school.

http://summit.sfu.ca/item/5641 (click on link and then download the PDF)

Elders share Shuswap language

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The photograph in the attached article below really hit home for me. It depicts how a language will die off with its elders unless something is done now. These women, the last remaining fluent speakers of the Secwepemc (Shuswap) language, have come together to create recordings of 3,360 words and phrases of the eastern dialect of the Secwepemc (Shuswap) language. This group of elders is from Enderby B.C., (which is located in our province’s interior), come from the Splats’in tribe.

What I find wonderful about this article is that the recordings of these grandmothers will be available on-line for anyone wishing to listen to what Secwepemc really sounds like. This project is vital, especially considering the ages of the elders at the time of the article in 2011 were between 71 and 89 years old. This shows that if projects like this aren’t encouraged in the next few years, many of the indigenous languages in B.C. will be lost forever. For example, out of the 800 members that live in the Splats’in community, there are only 10 members left who speak Secwepemc fluently. This is the related to the theme for my paper in ETEC 521. I am looking at how the next generations of Secwepemc speakers can envision fluency in the language (once the elders have passed on) by having only recordings to base their language learning on).

http://www.vernonmorningstar.com/community/133487098.html

Saving Indigenous Languages – Simon Fraser University