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Brennan Clarke/Victoria News</font>
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<p><font size="1" face="Verdana"><b>
John Elliott is continuing his father's efforts to preserve the
Sencoten language, once widely spoken among all the Coast Salish
peoples.</b></font></p>
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errors--> <font size="1" face="Verdana"><b> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br
/><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br
/><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br
/><br /><br />By Brennan Clarke<br />Victoria News</b><br />
<i>Apr 21 2006</i></font><br /><p><font size="2"
face="Verdana">Central Saanich teacher leading charge to save local
indigenous language from extinction.</font></p><p><font size="2"
face="Verdana">To many people, language is little more than the words
we use to communicate thoughts. <br /></font></p><p><font size="2"
face="Verdana">For John Elliott, it's a lifeline to preserving 10,000
years of aboriginal culture.<br /></font></p><p><font size="2"
face="Verdana">"The
language is the voice of the land. It's about our whole environment and
how we interact with nature," he said. "The language is all
about your
beliefs and your whole world view."<br /></font></p><p><font
size="2" face="Verdana">Elliott, a teacher at Lau'Welnew
tribal school, has dedicated the last 30 years of his life to
preserving Sencoten, an indigenous language spoken by Coast Salish
First Nations on both sides of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with the
Saanich Peninsula at the heart of the ancient culture.<br
/></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">Elliott's crusade to save
the language is a continuation of work his father began in the early
1970s.<br /></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">Dave
Elliott, a longtime fisherman, was working as a janitor with the
Saanich Indian School Board when he decided to create a phonetic
alphabet for Sencoten. It was a difficult task since Sencoten, like
many indigenous languages, contains a range of sounds that are
difficult to capture with the conventional 26-letter Roman alphabet
used around the world.<br /></font></p><p><font size="2"
face="Verdana">"My father used to say the language was dying
and people were losing the whole value system," Elliott recalled.
"I'm
taking his work one step further."<br /></font></p><p><font
size="2" face="Verdana">When Europeans first arrived on Vancouver
Island in the mid-1800s, there were an estimated 7,000 Sencoten
speakers. <br /></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">Today,
Elliott said that number has shrunk to a mere two dozen elders, due in
large part to a residential school system that prohibited aboriginal
children from speaking their native tongue.<br /></font></p><p><font
size="2" face="Verdana">"There's only 23 or 24
fluent speakers remaining," said Elliott. "Usually they're
older people
and some of them aren't that healthy. (The language) could die with the
elders that are here today."<br /></font></p><p><font size="2"
face="Verdana">But the bid to save Sencoten
(pronounced Sen-Cho-then) is yielding some encouraging results. All 200
of the school's students study the language, and the program has been
around long enough that former students are now parents who speak the
language around their children.<br />"The fluency's coming, but
it's slow. It took 50 years to take it out of us through the boarding
schools," Elliott said. <br /></font></p><p><font size="2"
face="Verdana">"After a couple of generations it's going to make a
difference. In the past there's been nobody at home to speak the
language."<br /></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">One
of the most useful teaching tools for young aboriginal students is
First Voices (firstvoices.ca), a three-year-old website that allows
First Nations to record and archive their native languages. <br
/></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">First
Voices, a co-operative venture between the Saanich Indian School Board
and the provincially funded First People's Heritage Language and
Culture Council, contains still pictures, video clips, recorded voices,
games and other features to pique the interest of young learners.<br
/></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">Elliott said the website
is just a tool, not the saviour of his people's language.<br
/></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">"It's
only a tool kit really. There has to be a personal commitment to really
knowing the language," Elliott said, noting the irony of using
modern
technology to save an ancient language.<br /></font></p><p><font
size="2" face="Verdana">"It really is ironic. A lot of these
things that are taking our kids' minds away and now we come along with
an Internet tool."<br /></font></p><p><font size="2"
face="Verdana">First
People's Heritage Language and Culture Council executive director Tracy
Herbert, said so far 134 B.C. languages and three Yukon languages have
been archived on the site. It's also attracted interest from other
indigenous groups in Canada, such as the Mi'kmaq.<br
/></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">"There are about 32
languages and 70-plus dialects in B.C. alone," she said. <br
/></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">The
provincial government, which provides about $600,000 a year to help the
council support First Nations arts, recently handed over an extra $1
million in one-time funding specifically for languages.<br
/></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">Herbert said
the federal government hasn't been quite so supportive. Although B.C.
is home to 60 per cent of Canada's aboriginal languages, the Department
of Canadian Heritage provides just $232,000 a year for language
programs in B.C.<br /></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">Four
years ago, former Heritage Minister Sheila
Copps pledged $160 million to preserve native languages, but the
federal government has yet to follow through on that commitment Herbert
added.<br /></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">"It is a
race against time and we really need to work
co-operatively with the communities and the language stakeholders,"
she
said. <br /></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana">For Elliott,
there's no distinction between saving the
language and saving the culture, since many of the words refer to
creation stories and legends. <br /></font></p><p><font size="2"
face="Verdana"><a
href="mailto:bclarke@vicnews.com">bclarke@vicnews.com</a><br
/></font></p><p><font size="2" face="Verdana"><b>Examples of Sencoten
language</b><br /><br />TENEW: land, earth or soil; can also mean
"a wish for the people." <br />SNANET:
rock, mountain or boulder; can also mean "gift," since
mountains are
considered sacred places that the creator gave to the people.<br
/>STEME: rain; but also means "a person falling from the
sky," a reference to the first person who came to earth.<br
/>TETACES:
island; also means relatives of the deep in reference to humans who
were turned into islands by the creator and told to look after the
people.<br />SCAANEW: salmon; also means "working people,"
which relates
to a creation story in which the creator transformed a group of
hard-working people into salmon.</font></p></div>