Indigenous languages as a global phrase takes in so many old and original cultures throughout the world. The emphasis at home in Canada is on the distinct languages facing the dangers of extinction. What if we create Indigenous Language Sanctuaries?
UNESCO, an international body that keeps a close eye on such things, have listed 16 languages in Canada on the Critically endangered list. UNESCO lists all languages endangered if you follow their metrics: Four categories make up the endangered category. They are: Critically, Severely, Definitely, and Vulnerable.
In the 21st century, there is interest in revitalizing indigenous languages. In Haida Gwaii, efforts are underway to record phrases and stories. Twenty-two years ago UNESCO determined there were a mere 24 speakers left with conversational knowledge of Haida. Most speakers were aged 70 to 80, with comprehension typically at the 50-year age level. It further stated that the language was not used in everyday conversations.
It has been twenty years that I have been coming back to Haida Gwaii. The Skidegate Haida Immersion Program (SHIP) began shortly before that. We filmed scenes at the SHIP during the production of the Ravens and Eagles TV series. It was exciting to see such efforts taking place to find new vitalities in language retention. The program was a catalyst in a community that has seen many of the original speakers leave this physical world. Even with the release of a feature film with the Haida language, use of the language is still low.
There are three dialects of the Haida language isolate that are used today: a northern dialect used in Alaskan Haida villages called X̱aad Kíl; another northern dialect used is G̱aw Tlagée/Old Massett also called X̱aad Kíl, and with strong similarities to the Alaskan dialect; and a Southern dialect used in HlG̱aagilda/Skidegate called X̱aayda Kil. Haida is now listed as critically endangered by UNESCO. Surely, the building blocks for a Haida Language Sanctuary are available. Can it be built?
As for my mother tongue, known in the 19th and 20th century as Maliseet, the numbers were also low but listed by UNESCO as Definitely Endangered with 355 speakers in 2003. It is remarkable what can happen in 22 years.
In 2005 we began to record translated versions of every TV documentary we have produced. Our language, Maliseet, tapped into the people still speaking the language. That work centered on the place where I grew up, the Tobique First Nations in New Brunswick. At the core of the translation team were two experts in our language. I use the terms expert rather loosely as the two women were not linguists, or teachers for that matter. One of the women was my eldest (now deceased) sister. The other was a respected Elder, considered by my sister as the most knowledgeable of the Maliseet spoken by our parents. One could not hope for such a working team.
When the work began I decided it would be critical for me to be at every recording. I ran the recording software and we sat for a week reviewing scripts, translating the words from our series called Storytellers in Motion. The series featured Canada’s growing indigenous media individuals. The cadence and terms in the film, TV and digital media industry was full of technology that never existed in the time of my parents. The word for photograph was the same as the one for audio recording, for shooting video or film, and for writing. We had to be inventive.
My command of Maliseet was weak at the time. I had been away from home for 30 years. Yet I was raised entirely speaking Maliseet at home, from birth to age 15. I left home at 16 to attend schools away from home, where I would board with Canadian families. My daily use of language shrunk to the odd weekends and holidays I could get home for. On those occasions, I spoke mostly English.
My parents were artists and builders. They knew the forest in our original terms. They knew flora and fauna and I took it all for granted. It would be revealed that I understood more than I was ready to admit when I began working with Shirley Bear and Henrietta Black. Basket making, canoes and snowshoes and the ash used as raw material all have their own names and unique descriptions and such knowledge would return to me as though I hadn’t stopped speaking. It was a phenomenal “ahah” moment for me.
Over the course of producing 39 half hours in two languages I would graduate from audio recorder to narrator of several shows. During the recording of our third season of the series an internationally recognized linguist and a member of our community, Dr Bernard Perley, sat with us for about two days during field work he was conducting in Tobique. He later wrote about our work giving it the title of “emergent vitality”.
“Jeffery Bear’s versioning project is a conscious effort to introduce Maliseet to new domains of language use and discursive worlds.” Dr Perley writes, “Through the process, new vocabulary words were created, new concepts became articulated in the language, and a new vitality of social engagement was introduced to the community. These are also worldmaking projects as our Wolastokwi skitkamikw (Maliseet world view) was enriched and enlarged through novel expressions and concepts.”
These days the APTN, the national Indigenous TV channel, broadcasts our work, Petroglyphs to Pixels. And the subject was Haida art. We managed to find new terms for many of the descriptive terms for Haida art. Although the language is not understood here, many people have watched some of the language broadcasts. My Elders knowledge of basket making, weaving techniques, carving on wood and references about the supernatural world, were all brought forward to describe Haida art in my mother tongue.
This is what I might call an Indigenous Language Sanctuary. Life on the Gwaii carries on.