<div dir="ltr"><div><article class="gmail-pb-layout-item gmail-pb-chain gmail-pb-c-article-chain gmail-col-lg-12 gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12" id="gmail-c0P9sqAOezrHlq"> <div class="gmail-wrapper gmail-clearfix gmail-col-lg-12 gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-pb-feature gmail-pb-layout-item gmail-pb-f-article-article-lede" id="gmail-f0H7LCQOezrHlq"> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-article-header gmail-bottom-border gmail-text-left"> <header class="gmail-category-label"> <span><a href="https://www.adn.com/section/arts/film-tv/">Film and TV</a></span> </header> <h1 class="gmail-"> Reviving the Haida language through film in Canada </h1> <div class="gmail-credits"> <ul class="gmail-list-inline"><li> <img class="gmail-byline-icon" src="https://www.adn.com/pb/resources/assets/svg/icons/pencil-black.svg" alt="pencil"> <span>Author:</span> <span class="gmail-author">Catherine Porter, The New York Times</span> </li><li> <img class="gmail-byline-icon" src="https://www.adn.com/pb/resources/assets/svg/icons/clock-black.svg" alt="clock"> Updated: 10 hours ago </li><li> <img class="gmail-byline-icon" src="https://www.adn.com/pb/resources/assets/svg/icons/calendar-black.svg" alt="calendar"> Published 10 hours ago </li></ul> </div> <div class="gmail-header-image-row"> <a href="https://www.adn.com/arts/film-tv/2017/06/11/reviving-the-haida-language-through-film-in-canada/#2652"> <img class="gmail-lede-image gmail-img-responsive gmail-image-lazy gmail-thumbnail" src="https://www.adn.com/resizer/EU-OEM8S4Pd6GbkVnJkXfHZlktU=/1200x0/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-wordpress-client-uploads/adn/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/11121454/CANADA_FILM_LANGUAGE_5.jpg?token=bar" alt="Sphenia Jones, 73, gets language help from Erica Ryan-Gagne, while rehearsing lines for “The Edge of the Knife,” on Graham Island, British Columbia in Canada, April 20, 2017. Like 150,000 indigenous children across Canada, Jones was sent far from home to a residential school to be forcibly assimilated into Western culture. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)"> </a> </div> <p class="gmail-caption gmail-text-left">Sphenia
Jones, 73, gets language help from Erica Ryan-Gagne, while rehearsing
lines for “The Edge of the Knife,” on Graham Island, British Columbia in
Canada, April 20, 2017. Like 150,000 indigenous children across Canada,
Jones was sent far from home to a residential school to be forcibly
assimilated into Western culture. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)</p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-wrapper gmail-clearfix gmail-col-lg-12 gmail-col-md-12 gmail-pb-feature gmail-pb-layout-item gmail-pb-f-article-body gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12" id="gmail-f0x310kOezrHlq"> <div class="gmail-row"> <div id="gmail-article-body" class="gmail-article-body gmail-article-body-elements"> <div id="gmail-article-content"> <div class="gmail-row"> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
HIELLEN, British Columbia — Speaking Haida for the first time in more
than 60 years looked painful. Sphenia Jones' cheeks glistened with
sweat, and her eyes clenched shut. She tried again to produce the
forgotten raspy echo of the Haida k', and again she failed. Then she
smiled broadly.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> "It feels so good," Jones, 73, said. "Mainly because I can say it out loud without being afraid."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
Like 150,000 indigenous children across Canada, Jones was sent far from
home to a residential school to be forcibly assimilated into Western
culture. There, any trappings of her native culture were strictly
forbidden. When a teacher caught Jones learning another indigenous
language from two schoolmates, Jones said, the teacher yanked out three
fingernails.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
It worked: Jones spoke nothing but English, until recently, when she
began learning her lines in the country's first Haida-language feature
film, "Edge of the Knife."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
With an entirely Haida cast, and a script written in a largely
forgotten language, the film reflects a resurgence of indigenous art and
culture taking place across Canada. It is spurred in part by efforts at
reconciliation for the horrors suffered at those government-funded
residential schools, the last of which was closed only in 1996.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
Restoring the country's 60 or so indigenous languages, many on the
verge of extinction, is at the center of that reconciliation.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
The loss of one language, said Wade Davis, a University of British
Columbia anthropology professor, is akin to clear-cutting an "old-growth
forest of the mind." The world's complex web of myths, beliefs and
ideas — which Davis calls the "ethnosphere" — is torn, just as the loss
of a species weakens the biosphere, he said.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> A Haida glossary dedicates three pages to words and expressions for rain.<br>
"English cannot begin to describe the landscape of Haida Gwaii," the
Haida homeland, Davis said. "There are 10,000 shades of nuance and
interpretation. That really is what language is."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
Fewer than 20 fluent speakers of Haida are left in the world, according
to local counts. For the Haida themselves, the destruction of their
language is profoundly tied to a loss of identity.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
"The secrets of who we are, are wrapped up in our language," said Gwaai
Edenshaw, a co-director of the film, who like most of the cast and crew
grew up learning some Haida in school but spoke English at home.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> "It's how we think," he continued. "How we label our world around us. It's also a resistance to what was imposed on us."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-pb-feature"> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
Edenshaw was a co-writer of the script for the 1.8 million Canadian
dollar ($1.3 million) film, which is set in Haida Gwaii — an archipelago
of forested islands off the west coast of Canada — during the 1800s. It
tells an iconic Haida story of the "wildman," a man who is lost and
becomes feral living in the forest. In this version, the wildman loses
his mind after the death of a child, and is forcibly returned to the
fold of his community in a healing ceremony.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
The script was translated into two remaining, distinct dialects of the
language: Xaad Kil and Xaayda Kil. None of the stars are conversant in
either dialect. The crew held a two-week language boot camp in April so
cast members, who also have little or no acting experience, could learn
to pronounce their lines before filming started in May.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> "I'm not used to using my mouth like that," said William Russ, 37, who sat on the floor of a long house.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
At his feet was a black speaker, which replayed the recording of a
Haida elder saying a line that in English seemed to capture his
predicament: "You are so careless, Aditsii. Everything is crumbling
around you."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> In Haida, it was twice as long, and included a series of G's, meant to echo from the back of the throat.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> "It's like we learned from the ravens and birds — all those clicking sounds," Russ said.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
That the Haida language is so threatened might surprise Canadians, as
the Haida are nationally known for their political and cultural
strength. They formed their own local government in 1974, and in 2002
filed a land claim for the entire archipelago in a Canadian court. (A
trial date has still not been set.)</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
They successfully blocked logging companies and rekindled their
traditional art forms, hoisting new totem poles across one northern
island.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> But that political and cultural resurgence has not spread to the Haida language, despite many grass-roots efforts.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
"The language was dying before me," said Diane Brown, 69, the
archipelago's best-known language advocate, who started to teach Haida
in schools in the 1970s. "The elders would say: 'What will we call
ourselves, if we don't speak Haida? Who is going to talk to the
ancestors?'"</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
In 1998, Brown helped found the Skidegate Haida Immersion Program to
teach the southern dialect, but the program's focus quickly shifted to
preservation, drawing elderly speakers to record commonly used phrases
and lessons onto thousands of audiotapes.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
Each death meant one fewer person to practice with. But tentative
learners have also faced local resistance, said Jaskwaan Bedard, who has
worked for 14 years to be "approaching fluency." She is finishing her
degree to teach Haida-as-a-second-language classes in local high
schools.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-pb-feature"> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> "How the language was lost was very traumatic," she said. "That's one of the barriers — working through the trauma."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
The experience shows how difficult it is to regain a language, once it
is silenced. The Haida language is particularly hard for English
speakers to learn, according to Marianne Ignace, director of the First
Nations Language Center at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British
Columbia.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
Unrelated to any other language, its grammar is complex and its
structure polysynthetic; a verb conveys not just action but a wealth of
other information. Then there is basic pronunciation. Haida has some 35
consonants and two tones. There are 20 sounds that do not exist in
English.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
"If you don't speak it, you lose the hollow in the side of your cheek,"
Jones said, inserting the lid of a pen into her mouth so she could
produce the Haida "hl."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
The film would seem cripplingly ambitious if not for the record of the
executive producer, the Inuit director Zacharias Kunuk. He made his name
with "Atanarjuat" ("The Fast Runner"), which depicted an Inuit folk
epic and starred untrained Inuit actors speaking their traditional
language, Inuktitut.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
That film won the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001, and
is still considered one of the best Canadian films of all time.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
But the casts of "Atanarjuat" and of Kunuk's subsequent films were
fluent in Inuktitut, one of three indigenous languages still widely
spoken in Canada.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
"We financed enough to produce the film," said Jonathan Frantz, the
producer and director of photography, who works for Kunuk's production
company, Kingulliit Productions. "There's no extra money for
language-learning. That is a $100,000 multiyear project on its own."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
If delivering the lines proves too difficult for some cast members, he
will resort to adding them in later, he said. But ultimately, the movie
is "about sustaining the language and culture through authentic
representation."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
In Haida Gwaii, the film is a desperately needed boost to the economy
on the reserves, where unemployment is estimated at 70 percent.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
Local builders constructed a long house on the site of an old
traditional village where the film is being shot. Local weavers made the
costumes. A Haida artist tattooed clan crests on the chests and arms of
willing actors in the traditional stick-and-poke fashion.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
A local musician, Vern Williams, was hired to create songs for the
film. During the evenings of the language camp, he pulled out his
guujaaw — drum — and filled the long house with his low, mournful voice.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-pb-feature"> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> Williams, 58, spent seven terrible years in a residential school.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> "I don't call this reconciliation," he said. "Something was taken. We are taking it back."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its damning
report two years ago, shocking Canadians with haunting accounts of
sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect that indigenous children
suffered in the residential schools over more than a century. The report
outlined 94 recommendations — "calls to action" — which various
governments, institutions and citizens across the country are grappling
with, particularly this year, Canada's 150th anniversary.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-wrapper gmail-clearfix gmail-col-lg-12 gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-pb-feature gmail-pb-layout-item gmail-pb-f-article-mailchimp-inline-newsletter" id="gmail-fHT7A11OezrHlq"> <div class="gmail-with-bottom-border"> <div class="gmail-form-wrapper"> <div id="gmail-mc_embed_signup"> <form action="//adn.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=186a3ffe5c9fcb68d09408dc5&id=89d7d6e5c2" method="post" id="gmail-mc-embedded-subscribe-form" name="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" class="gmail-validate"> <div id="gmail-mc_embed_signup_scroll"> <div class="gmail-mc-field-group"> <label for="mce-EMAIL">Signup for our Arts/Entertainment Newsletter</label> <input value="" name="EMAIL" class="gmail-required email" id="gmail-mce-EMAIL" type="email"> </div> <div id="gmail-mce-responses" class="gmail-clear"> </div> <div style="left: -5000px;"> <input name="b_186a3ffe5c9fcb68d09408dc5_4572c26e91" tabindex="-1" value="" type="text"> </div> <div class="gmail-clear"> </div></div></form></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="gmail-wrapper gmail-clearfix gmail-col-lg-12 gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-pb-feature gmail-pb-layout-item gmail-pb-f-article-mailchimp-inline-newsletter" id="gmail-fHT7A11OezrHlq"><div class="gmail-with-bottom-border"><div class="gmail-form-wrapper"><a href="https://www.adn.com/newsletter/"><p class="excerpt gmail-more-letters">For more newsletters click here</p></a> </div> </div> </div><div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
The commission called on the government to invest heavily in the
revitalization of indigenous languages, noting it spends just CA$9.1
million on programs supporting dozens of them each year, compared with
CA$348.2 million on the country's two official languages, French and
English.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
In December, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government increased
annual funding for indigenous languages to CA$23 million and promised to
introduce an Indigenous Languages Act to protect them. To date, that
has not happened.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
"This is fundamental to our survival as indigenous people," said Perry
Bellegarde, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, which
represents 634 reserves in Canada. He was optimistic that the law will
be introduced in next summer, and come with "as much resources to
promote the languages as they did to kill them."</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph">
After a long day of stumbling over pronunciation, Russ, one of the
actors, sat by the wood stove with his script open on his lap, enjoying
Williams' music for a moment. He had circled every line he found
difficult, which were all 37.<br> His relaxation did not last long. "I'm starting to feel overwhelmed," he said, heading outside to practice.</p> </div> </div> <div class="gmail-row"> <div class="gmail-col-md-12 gmail-col-sm-12 gmail-col-xs-12 gmail-col-print-12"> <p class="element element-paragraph"> Two weeks was not enough to learn pronunciation, let alone memorize his lines. Then, he had to learn how to act.</p> </div> </div><br clear="all"><br></div>-- NYTimes 6/12/17<br><div><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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