{"id":55729,"date":"2019-04-17T13:51:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T17:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=55729"},"modified":"2025-10-18T17:01:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T21:01:41","slug":"recovering-yukon-languages","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/recovering-yukon-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovering Yukon Languages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Recovering Yukon Languages\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

A language is more than a series of sounds given structure through grammar and meaning through symbolism. There are more than 7,000 languages on Earth, and each one can convey that which is common to every culture. We have more than 7,000 ways to communicate love, anger, darkness and light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each language is also a unique way of understanding the world and a method of conveying a particular way of life, of communicating what its speakers do differently from others, recognizing unique weather patterns, or telling distinctive oral histories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A century from now, much of that diversity will be gone.  More than 2,500 languages are threatened worldwide — eight of them are in Canada\u2019s Yukon Territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Recovering
Prof. Christopher Cox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Christopher Cox is working with the Yukon Native Language Centre<\/a> to revitalize those languages and restore the intergenerational cycle of language learning in Yukon First Nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The assistant professor of Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies<\/a> is working with the centre to digitize its language resources for teaching Gwich\u2019in, H\u00e4n, Kaska, Northern Tutchone, Southern Tutchone, Tagish, Tlingit and Upper Tanana.  The new digital tools will help communities and schools support language learners by overcoming some of the logistical hurdles of northern life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Yukon centre\u2019s language resource materials are kept at Yukon College<\/a> in Whitehorse. Indigenous language learners often live in distant rural communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the challenges teachers had was accessing language resource materials,\u201d says Cox, who worked with the First Nations Programs and Partnerships Unit at Yukon Education<\/a> before coming to Carleton two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTeachers had to come to the site at Yukon College and search its collections to obtain teaching materials. It often meant that teachers were going through 20 or 30 years worth of printed booklets. Sitting down and trying to remember what year it was that Valentine\u2019s Day or St. Patrick\u2019s Day had been discussed in a meeting. That was a huge challenge for them. It was a challenge for me too, trying to find the material. Over time, we started to digitize existing materials at Yukon Education, and I was fortunate to be able to continue that when I came to Carleton, in partnership with the Yukon Native Language Centre.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Recovering<\/figure>\n\n\n

Revitalizing and Reclaiming Yukon Languages<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The centre\u2019s language materials will be digitized and searchable online using their English translations. The software has even been trained to recognize special characters that don\u2019t exist in the Roman alphabet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you go to the languages bar on the YNLC.ca website<\/a> and click on any language, you can see a live preview of the complete collection of scanned documents for that language,\u201d says Cox, who is working with the centre to develop a similar archive of digital audio resources where language learners can consult how words or phrases are pronounced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor some languages, there are literally thousands of pages of material. Now you can click a box and find whatever word or phrase you\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Tina Jules, director of the Yukon Native Language Centre, the new resources and search tool will help support a new generation of language learners as they strive for greater fluency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of our languages are in a critical state and need immediate support,\u201d says Julies, noting that all Yukon First Nations are engaged in language program building, with some even offering intensive immersion programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Recovering
The Alaska Highway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have one language that is \u2018dormant.\u2019 It\u2019s in a process of reclamation, meaning that there aren\u2019t any birth speakers who fully speak the language. But the positive part is that there are members of that ethnic group advocating, engaging and trying to learn the language. So it\u2019s not extinct, it\u2019s being reclaimed. The rest of our languages are in the revitalization stage, where there has been a severe shift to using English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout Canada\u2019s North, Indigenous languages are under threat, but the Yukon\u2019s long history of contact with European languages makes the situation there especially acute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe story in the other territories is just . . . different,\u201d Cox says.  \u201cWhat contact looks like, how colonization unfolded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Yukon, there were several waves of non-indigenous newcomers.  Missionaries who arrived in the 19th<\/sup> century and the Klondike Gold Rush were major disruptions for many First Nations and, in the 1940s, the Alaska Highway linked northern B.C. with Alaska via the Yukon.  That brought more settlers, who brought English language radio and television with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was a major turning point for many First Nations. It increased the amount of contact. Combined with the policy that forced children to attend residential schools, it had a huge impact on local languages.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Recovering<\/figure>\n\n\n

Supporting a New Generation of Yukon Language Learners<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through its parent organization, the Council of Yukon First Nations<\/a>, the Yukon Native Language Centre has the mandate to support all Yukon First Nations to reclaim and restore Indigenous languages. As Jules sees it, the work Cox and his team are doing to create teaching resources that can be used throughout the territory is an important part of achieving their goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Recovering
Yukon College, home of the Yukon Native Language Centre. Photo by grampymoose.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe overall vision is that one day our babies will be born into their language,\u201d she says, \u201cand the intergenerational process of learning, teaching and becoming fluent is in place again. The cycle is restored in our homes and in our communities. That\u2019s what we\u2019re striving for, and why an initiative like this is so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If we\u2019re going to recover our languages, our babies must be learning their language, as their first language, their mother tongue. Their parents are teaching using their language as the main language. It\u2019s these kinds of resources that we need to be able offer in language proficiency programs to help support a generation of parents who will raise their babies in their language once again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A language is more than a series of sounds given structure through grammar and meaning through symbolism. There are more than 7,000 languages on Earth, and each one can convey that which is common to every culture. We have more than 7,000 ways to communicate love, anger, darkness and light. Each language is also a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":55747,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[13,1931],"cu_story_tag":[1920,1927],"class_list":["post-55729","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_type-social-innovation","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-arts-and-social-sciences","cu_story_tag-indigenous"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/55729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/55729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97632,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/55729\/revisions\/97632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=55729"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=55729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}