On language and Ktunaxa women (fwd link)

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KOOTENAY WOMAN
On language and Ktunaxa women

Published: January 27, 2010 11:00 AM
by Brian Coombs, Kootenay News Advertiser

The period when the Ktunaxa first met white settlers to the present is
just a drop in the river of time they have called this region home.
For 10,000 years prior the world was a different place.

“We didn’t so much live off the land as we lived with it. It was
balanced. We took what it had to offer and we were thankful,” said
Dorothy Alpine, Ktunaxa elder and language expert.

Perhaps this balance meant they never had to create a word for
extinction--a concept they have no plans to add to their lexicon.

Across North America, indigenous peoples have lost their language at
an alarming rate. Actually, in many cases it would be more fair to say
that the language was taken from them through the use of residential
schools; where for generations it was a punishable offence for native
children to speak their mother tongue. From the US, through Canada,
more than 20 native languages have been lost--representing nearly half
of all the languages on the continent. It is hard to imagine the
despair an aging grandmother might feel knowing that her grandson will
never know his native language--a cornerstone of culture.

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