Breathing Life into Language By Lucy Bell, Head of First Nations and Repatriation Program
I
magine if there were no more speakers of your language. How would you revive it? In June, I had the opportunity to explore a unique way of reviving endangered Indigenous languages at the National Breath of Life workshop in Washington, DC. This workshop brought together community researchers and linguists from across North America to find, share and use linguistic archival resources in the DC area. I wore two hats while I was there: my Haida hat as a language learner and my museum hat as the head of the First Nations and Repatriation Program department. My mother tongue, Xaad Kil—the Haida language—is critically endangered. I have been learning my language for 10 years and I have a master’s in language revitalization, so I am very passionate about Indigenous language revitalization
strategies. My two weeks in Washington were spent digging through archival materials, listening to old recordings and looking at more than 2,000 Haida treasures. I held the handwritten notes of John Swanton, who visited Haida Gwaii in 1900 and whose books of Haida stories I have been learning from. I listened to Haida songs from 1950 and saw many wordlists, stories and other documents in my language. Listening to old versions of happy birthday or chief commemoration songs, I felt as though I was going back in time. I had wanted to see if museums and archives really could help revitalize my language, and I came back to the Royal BC Museum feeling hopeful. Many of our repatriation requests come from Indigenous people learning their languages and traditions. The repatriation
of intangible treasures is an important part of the repatriation movement, and the museum’s response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s findings includes providing free access to archival materials for First Nations people in BC. This is an incredible step towards meaningful linguistic and cultural reconciliation. There are 34 Indigenous languages and 61 language dialects in BC, and many of them are endangered. We have over 2,600 audiovisual recordings in our First Nations and Repatriation Program department collection. Digitizing and providing recordings to First Nations communities is important work, work that the museum has done for many years and will continue to do. We are also planning to host a series of small language workshops—the first participants will be graduate students from the Haida, Heiltsuk, Tahltan, Kaska, Secwepemc, Squamish and Sto:lo Nations who are enrolled in Simon Fraser University’s Indigenous language programs and are searching for resources. I am excited to learn about, study and share our recordings. Today I learned that we hold an 1885 recording of a Skidegate Haida man reminiscing about his childhood and talking about his traditions in the Haida language. This is just one of the many treasures in our collection. The Royal BC Museum is a box of traditional knowledge, stories and songs just waiting to be opened. For more about the National Breath of Life conference, visit nationalbreathoflife.org. Lucy Bell in the First Peoples gallery.
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What’s inSight
Fall 2017