way̓ x̌ast sx̌əlx̌ʕalt, iskʷwist qʕwaʔqʷíslaʔqin, kn tl spax̌mn. Hello, good day, I am Justine Manuel from spax̌mn, also known as Upper Nicola, of the Okanagan Nation. I am a fourth year Bachelor of Nsyilxcn Fluency Degree student. I am very excited to be a part of creating language recordings for the UBCO campus.
Our nsyilxcn language comes from the land and it is great to see it being implemented on campus for students, faculty, staff and guests to take part in. The Okanagan language is very sacred and beautiful, there is a whole other world of knowledge within our language. The translations you see are very surface based, and if we were to ask our fluent speakers more about these translations, we would see just how brilliant and specific our language is.
For this project I recorded two terms, xwiɬ k̕әl tqәltkusms which translates to “path to the upper place” and nʔaʔúkʷmn nxəláktns, translating to “ the transportation path”.
xwiɬ k̕әl tqәltkusms (Upper Campus Way) audio recorded by: qʕwaʔqʷíslaʔqin tl spax̌əm, Justine Manuel-Young, language learner
naʔuʔkʷmn nxəláktns (Transit Loop) audio recorded by: qʕwaʔqʷíslaʔqin tl spax̌əm, Justine Manuel-Young, language learner
In taking part of this project I did not have an initial preference on which terms I wanted to record, I am very happy to record any language in hopes of helping others pronounce our language. Our fluent speakers always remind us how important it is to speak properly and really enunciate our language to the best of our ability. I have been working on my pronunciation throughout my language journey and pray that I make my ancestors proud. I hope this project will remind the students, faculty, staff and guests that our language is living, it is still here! putíʔ kʷu aláʔ, “We are still here”. We are continuously working toward keeping our language alive for ourselves and importantly, our future generations. Speaking language is very important to me and am so grateful to have this learning opportunity with the BNLF program.
way’ limləmt, thank you