First Nations Languages

FIRST NATIONS LANGUAGES are more prevalent in BC than in any other province in Canada. Approximately half of Canada's 60 FIRST NATIONS languages are native to BC. Of the 32 native tongues originally spoken in the province, 3 (Nicola, TSETSAUT and PENTLATCH) are extinct and several others are in extremis, spoken only by a few elders. Each of these languages is a distinct idiom but may be spoken over a large area in several mutually intelligible dialectal forms. Linguists sometimes disagree as to whether the usage of related peoples should be considered separate tongues (ie not mutually understandable by speakers) or dialects of the same language. Oweekyala-Heiltsuk and Nass-Gitksan are examples of this.

Two of BC's First Nations languages (HAIDA and Kutenai) are isolates, not known to be related to any other tongues. The rest belong to 5 language families as follows (for reference purposes, group names customarily used in the past have been indicated, with more appropriate and preferred contemporary usage in parentheses):

ATHABASKAN:
Beaver (DUNNE-ZA), Carrier (including DAKELH and WET'SUWETEN), Chilcotin (TSILHQOT'IN), Nicola, SEKANI, Slavey (DENE-THAH), TAGISH, TAHLTAN, Taku, Tsetsaut; and TLINGIT is considered to be distantly related.

SALISHAN:
Coast Salish: COMOX (including Island and Mainland Comox or SLIAMMON), HALKOMELEM (including Island, Downriver and Upriver Halkomelem), Pentlatch, SECHELT (Shishalh), SQUAMISH, NORTHERN STRAITS (including Sooke [T'sou-ke], Saanich and Songhees [LEKWAMMEN]), CLALLUM, and the coastal outlier, Bella Coola (NUXALK); Interior Salish: Lillooet (ST'AT'IMC), OKANAGAN, Shuswap (SECWEPEMC), and Thompson (NLAKA'PAMUX).

WAKASHAN:
Northern branch: Kwakiutl (KWAKWAKA'WAKW), Oweekyala- Heiltsuk, and HAISLA; Southern branch: Nootka (NUU-CHAH-NULTH) and Nitinat (Ditidaht).

TSIMSHIAN:
Coast Tsimshian, Southern Tsimshian and Nass-GITKSAN (including East and West Gitksan and NISGA'A).

ALGONKIAN:
Cree

Many groups now prefer and officially use phonetic renderings of their own group names, and a group may use a different term for its language. First Nations languages (except Cree) share a sound system that has fascinated linguists, including a series of snapped (ejective) consonants, back (uvular) and rounded (labialized) consonants and syncopated pronunciation caused by glottal stops. The languages are called polysynthetic, a reference to their feature of adding prefixes and suffixes to a word-root, often resulting in words of great length. Bella Coola is remarkable for having words composed only of consonants. In order to assert distinct ethnic identity, communities speaking related dialects occasionally characterize their usage as a distinct language. None of these languages is being transmitted as mother tongue to children. The prospect of impending language extinction has inspired nearly all First Nations communities in BC to implement programs for documenting and teaching their heritage tongues. However, despite a variety of techniques and approaches, the trend toward language loss continues and in many communities the native language is used almost exclusively in ceremonial contexts. A hybrid trade language, CHINOOK JARGON (composed primarily of loanwords from Chinook, Nuu-chah-nulth, Chehalis, French and English), was widely used in BC during the period of settlement but died out when English became broadly known among First Nations people. Today the BC landscape reflects the province's heritage of First Nations languages and Chinook Jargon in hundreds of anglicized place names.
by Jay Powell