May
11
By Rita Button
The Museum has done it again. The installation “Our Living Languages” depicting the near loss of First Nations’ original languages, and how they are coming together to return it to their lives is a display worth seeing.
Losing a language means much more than losing words; it means losing the connections with ancestors, cultural values, and the reality of the object or concept identified by one word for which the adopted language has none. Lives are impoverished as a result.
Before the language disappears completely, First Nations people are working to save it. According to the BC First Nations Languages 2014 report, approximately 4% of First Nations People speak their original language fluently. BC has thirty-four unique First Nations languages. Since First Nations language originates from an oral tradition, the written language is relatively new. You will learn how some of it was developed with orthographies in connection with First Nations People when you explore this display, which runs until June, 2017.
As you enter the display, you will be able to see and hear some of the indigenous words spoken by pressing a button. The English translation is given. Sometimes, my ears forced me to press the button again so that I could understand that the sound of the letters in English is not the same in many of the First Nations languages.
Indigenous words are sometimes presented through artifacts. A beautiful mask, labelled Lulusta, is displayed behind glass. In English, information is given that lulusta is the word for mask in the Nuxalk language. Other artifacts pop out at you in a similar manner.
The film, Our Living Language, shows the need to return to being fluent in a person’s original language. First Nations’ People are coming together to find ways of helping each other to learn. In the short film, one person spoke of his grandmother’s sisters talking to him when he was an adolescent regarding the need to learn his own language. At the time, he says, he wasn’t interested, but now, an adult, he sees the need for, and the joy of, connecting to his past with the language his ancestors spoke. Another woman talked about being approached to learn the language of her people so that she could become a teacher. She didn’t want to; she was scared. However, she was persuaded, and has become a teacher who is able to teach the language to others. Her story has become inspiration for others whose fear of failure is set aside in the pursuit of becoming more connected with cultural values and family.
A great part of the installation is the piece set up by the First Peoples’ Cultural council, a First Nations run Crown Corporation. A number of short vignettes are presented on film illustrating some of the ways in which the movement for language came about while others depict life for a First Nations student at school where students learn in the language of their ancestors. John Elliot, the narrator of Typewriter, tells about his father, a custodian who created a 37 letter alphabet in the Sencoten language so that it could be written as well as spoken beginning the possibility of having their “right as human beings, to have the language” of our people, as his son John suggests in the film.
The display makes the point that a reconnection to the language will create a richer, more meaningful life. Language is a unifying force. Thapwuut, Susan Mitchell Pielle, of the Sliammon Nation states: “Speaking our language breathes life into our rituals.” Other quotations remind us that language is inseparable from spirituality, a unique world view, and a way of giving us knowledge of how to live on the land and have good relations with all things.
The Articles from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples declares language to be a basic human right. Articles 13, 14, and 15 are presented for all to read and understand. As well, the difficulties responsible for losing the language are identified clearly: loss of connection, children, people, culture, identity, land, and resources. These losses are described to explain how the languages came to be lost. Residential schools are a part of this loss.
Another display board shows the challenges and successes of the process. While sadness exists in the tragedy of the loss, celebration is also included for the progress that is being made. The display dramatizes not only the importance of language, but also the ways in which it can be reclaimed from an almost forgotten past. Thus, the relearning process becomes the reason for optimism and rejuvenation.
“We want what everyone wants for their children: to know who they are and where they’re going,” states Viermer Wells, language learner, and language exhibition advisory member, Chattesaht First Nation. The installation shows an important part of getting there.
Professor Jack Lohman, CEO of the museum comments: “As a newcomer to Canada,” he says, “I am struck by the immensely challenging, but rewarding work of the First People’s Cultural Council in helping to save our indigenous languages.” Their work is a large part of the installation that communicates so easily to learners as they begin to understand the enormity of the task. But then the Professor adds one more interesting and exciting statement: “One of the museum’s roles must be to lead in understanding and valuing the intangible British Columbian heritage.”
Wonderful, I say!