Tłįchǫ talking dictionary app

Well, CBC interviewed some of us working on the Tłįchǫ talking dictionary app last week while Tammy Steinwand-Deschambeault was visiting at the University of Victoria. People first heard the story in a few radio spots in English and Tłįchǫ. And now there is a small written piece on cbc.ca/north, and also a TV story, both of these accessible through:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2012/03/29/north-tlicho-language-app.html

The app has been a while in the design and testing, and we expect it to be released in a couple of months. There is no substitute for face to face, person to person communication, but this app has brought a lot of people together to work on something that the young people might think is cool.

We are hoping for their input on the second version!

Dǫ ahxee

This phrase was used recently about the late Harry Mantla, a Tłįchǫ man and the husband of my friend Rosa, who passed away with a massive heart attack in the middle of January. Some words are very significant in a culture and impossible to translate.

If you look in the dictionary, you see the translation ‘rich man, wealthy man’, and also ‘complete’, or ‘well-rounded’.

As Rosa said in her eulogy (which I certainly didn’t understand in full), her husband could be described as “dǫ ahxee”. He wasn’t rich, he didn’t have a big job, but he was accomplished, could do things, and so provided very well for himself, his family, and others. It is sad that he is no longer among us, but he was truly dǫ ahxee.

You can find his obituary from News/North here:

http://www.nnsl.com/obits/Mantla.pdf

 

The Berger Inquiry, the CBC, and northern radio broadcasters

Earlier this year I read a wonderful article remembering the great CBC radio journalists who told the story of the Berger Inquiry in the Indigenous languages of the Mackenzie Valley, Louie Blondin, Joe Tobie, Abe Okpik, and Jim Sittichinli. It was written by Whit Fraser, their colleague, and appeared in the magazine Above and Beyond, March/April 2011. In that amazing period these people really made a difference in the lives of the people they were speaking to and in their future and the future of the country.

Happily we can read the article on-line at the link below.

http://www.arcticjournal.ca/index.php/2011/03/then-there-were-four/

Goahde

The word goahde in the Tłįchǫ language translates as ‘talk!’ (spoken to more than one person). Because it can be understood by other Dene language speakers in the Mackenzie Valley (and it doesn’t include any diacritics for tone or nasal vowels that are not acceptable in WordPress domain names) I used it in the address of this blog. Gots’ede translates as ‘we are talking’ or ‘people are talking’, and this was my first choice, but the apostrophe got in the way.

In Monday’s issue of News/North available on news-stands and on-line, John B. Zoe encouraged the use of Indigenous languages by ending his column with words saying ‘let’s speak our languages’.

Yati Blog

This blog’s title means ‘language’ or ‘word’ in some of the Dene languages of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Here I’ll post various items related to language, languages, Dene languages, Indigenous languages, language revitalization, and related topics. I’m a linguist working at the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC. For information about my department, see web.uvic.ca/ling. I have collaborated for many years with language specialists with the Tłįchǫ Community Services Agency. For information about the TCSA, see www.tlicho.ca

A friend’s blog

Alana Johns’ blog, A Labrador Community Grammar, is found at http://ukausivut.wordpress.com/. She just attended a community transcription workshop where people practised their transcribing skills with stories told by elder Mary Dicker.