Saving Sencote

[Andre Cramblit]

By Brennan Clarke
Victoria News
Apr 21 2006
Central Saanich teacher leading charge to save local indigenous  
language from extinction.

To many people, language is little more than the words we use to  
communicate thoughts.

For John Elliott, it's a lifeline to preserving 10,000 years of  
aboriginal culture.

"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."

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.

Elliott's crusade to save the language is a continuation of work his  
father began in the early 1970s.

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.

"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."

When Europeans first arrived on Vancouver Island in the mid-1800s,  
there were an estimated 7,000 Sencoten speakers.

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.

"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."

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.
"The fluency's coming, but it's slow. It took 50 years to take it out  
of us through the boarding schools," Elliott said.

"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."

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.

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.

Elliott said the website is just a tool, not the saviour of his  
people's language.

"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.

"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."

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.

"There are about 32 languages and 70-plus dialects in B.C. alone,"  
she said.

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.

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.

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.

"It is a race against time and we really need to work co-operatively  
with the communities and the language stakeholders," she said.

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.

bclarke at vicnews.com

Examples of Sencoten language

TENEW: land, earth or soil; can also mean "a wish for the people."
SNANET: rock, mountain or boulder; can also mean "gift," since  
mountains are considered sacred places that the creator gave to the  
people.
STEME: rain; but also means "a person falling from the sky," a  
reference to the first person who came to earth.
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.
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.
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