More french bull, Give the French language the same rights as English gets in Quebec. Let get the Native Carrier language included also.

Add Inuit to that too!

Québécois French or Parisian French?

Will we be using arrêt signs as they do in Quebec or stop signs as they do in France? ;-)

if a town in Quebec gets the games i wonder if english would be the ‘official languages partner’ hahahahahahahahaha oh sorry i was having a dunce thought for a minute. nothing to see here folks, same thing about the entitlement of the french, move along now

They do intend to include Carrier. The signage is to be in all three languages. If you go to their offices downtown, on the outside of the building you can already see a sign in Carrier that reads: ᙩᐯᐣᗦ ᗘᙅᑋᑓᑊ. It presumably isn’t mentioned here because Carrier is not an official language of Canada.

BCRacer raises an interesting point. The Olympics is pretty definitely a financial burden for the hosts. What is the record of the Canada Winter Games? They are much smaller in scale and mostly use existing venues, so they aren’t obviously the money sink that the Olympics are.

The language policy of BC government is not friendly enough towards the display of first nation languages. Show me one street sign in PG or Vanderhoof with carrier signs, where there are numerous carrier lands. Why the UNBC sign is not displayed in Carrier? Who gave their land for UNBC to be built on?

If you travel to Vancouver downtown you see street signs in Chinese. Is the status of Carrier, Salish and other native languages lower than Chinese in BC?

I am afraid there is even a lack of tolerance for such discussions on the media. Folks it is time to put an end to such backward mentality of residential schools that suppresses those tongues. We don’t need to be ashamed by the UN again. Or do we?

chet wa chenchens-tumi.
chet chawa-tumi-yap.

Both the Olympics and the Canada Winter Games are ways (we might call ‘excuses’)to introduce new credit into the economy. Credit that will be introduced as more debt, to be ultimately repaid ‘publicly’ through increased taxation.

Without which existing credit that was previously incurred as debt ‘privately’ would not be capable of being fully amortised. Not so long as the main way we distribute incomes is through employment, and much of that debt was incurred to reduce CURRENT overall labor costs (personal incomes) with capital costs. Which displace them, and the spending from those incomes that would otherwise have been possible.

The principal beneficiary of our penchant for these kind of ‘make work’ spectacles is Canada’s financial system ~ the big banks.

While our attention is diverted by creating arguments over some other language(s) appearing on a sign, they’re still busy picking the pockets of all of us, no matter what language we speak.

Enjoy your Games, they’ll give some people great pleasure, no doubt. But the pain of paying for them will linger long after everyone’s forgotten who won the medals, and that’ll be borne by all of us, as the process has to be more intensively repeated, and the debts grow ever larger.

univ… it’s not about status, it’s about cold hard cash.

The new immigrant Chinese down here have a lot of money and don’t know how to read/speak English very well (particularly in Richmond). The business people figured out they need to post signage in both English and Chinese if they want their business.

If the Carrier language (or any other) held the same kind of financial clout, you can bet your hind-quarters that signage everywhere would have that language posted, if it made a difference of the bottom line.

Debt is debt, no matter what language. Is there a Carrier word for debt? I bet not.

Why would there be a Carrier word for debt? If there were, it would be a modern introduction into the language.

How could any stoneage society have a need for the word debt as we know it. There might be an indebtedness for a good deed done to save someone but if that was part of ordinary saving of a member of a closely knit community, why the need for being indebted for something that anyone would do for anyone else in trouble?

The earth was here to supply everyone until we began to overpopulate and had to send people out to find other parts where there were free riches we could plunder.

So, those coming from other lands were the plunders, while the Carrier were still lord over lands which allowed them to survive without resorting to plundering.

The ancestors of those who plundered owe a debt to those who were here before us. We are the people who do not fully understand the word debt!!

Ask Bill Poser on Carrier, but in Squamish they call money Tala. Perhabs debt is devil money (liyam + tala :)

Maybe someone can tell your children what Squamish, Kootney, Bella Cola … mean once the foolish language policies in BC, UNBC and others push these languages into extinction. You cannot put value on culture, language and history. Can you?

There is so much stuff on the internet to help educate people of how things could be here as well …… but we know that our mindset does not allow us that luxury of understanding and supporting cultures other than what we grew up with our mommies and daddies.

So here goes some good cutting and pasting to make sure that those lazy enough not to click through to a hyperlinked article get it presented right here.

“Aboriginal language now on UBC campus street signs”

“Visitors to UBC’s Okanagan campus in Kelowna will get a bilingual experience while travelling the campus roads. New street signs feature both English and Nsyilxcen, the traditional language spoken by the Okanagan’s original people.

“UBC Okanagan is located in the traditional territory of the Okanagan Nation,” says Lyle Mueller, Director, Aboriginal Programs and Services. “It is customary among Aboriginal people to acknowledge and respect traditional territories. Knowing this, UBC Okanagan felt it was appropriate to acknowledge the traditional territory of the Okanagan Nation by using its language on campus.”

What a horrible attitude this fellow has!!! Right????

For those who might be curious to see what the signs look like
https://people.ok.ubc.ca/publicaffairs/exchange/2010-04-07/sign.jpg

Remember, Switzerland has four national languages, one of which, Romansch, goes back to the days of the Romans. It is spoken by less than 1% of the population.

Romansch road sign.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/media/cms/images/swissinfo/2006/07/sriimg20060817_6927566_3.jpg

Why do I bring that up? Because it is an old language, spoken by few people, yet it gains national and, more importantly, regional recognition.

What a concept!!!!

What a way of saying “We support you!!”

Univ … you keep bitchin’ about UNBC. I do not know what your status in our ivory tower is, but anyone should be able to reasonably approach the UNBC and show them what UBC Okanagan has done and do something of similar impact here.

Of course, one would have to get support from the local bands in the various communities that UNBC has a physical presence. Since we are talking about several aboriginal language groups in UNBC’s “territory”, it might even be appropriate to have several different signs at the main campus to reflect those language groups.

So, univ, here is you opportunity to show us you leadership capabilities.

Ask UNBC why expert people like Poser can do research on Carrier in CNC and other universities, but not in UNBC. Those in PG and UNBC fully know the extent and depth of problems in UNBC. It is not just about some signs, it is the policies (or lack of enforcement of policies) in the office of UNBC president …

As an example, it is a foolish research policy that a VP of research advises a researcher in UNBC not to work on first nation languages and advises to work on other subject areas …. It is a foolish policy to push away from UNBC researchers and professors coming from top universities such as MIT and Stanford and McGill …

leadership? My ass! ;-)

gus: “So here goes some good cutting and pasting to make sure that those lazy enough not to click through to a hyperlinked article get it presented right here.”

Just like people don’t click on strange links in their e-mail, the same could be said for links in anonymous comment sections. It’s not all about being lazy.

Well, I would call ignorance of the internet and not trusting a common poster on here as opposed to the phishing posters who occasionally come here.

I would think this is a community of people who can see who to trust and who not to trust.

While there may be some who are like that, I doubt one would even find them on this site. If they are that paranoid, they should really trust no one, no site, no social medium, and most certainly not use e-mail

….. and go to weight loss sites. … LOL

A “stoneage society” could indeed have a word for ‘debt’ the same as we know it if they had advanced beyond the point where any trading between members of that society involved more than a barter exchange of different articles consumated completely at one and the same TIME.

Many native groups used “wampum”, where a token of some type was given by one party indicating his indebtedness to another. And in this the natives here were no different from other peoples elsewhere who moved out of a stoneage culture into more advanced ones, right up into our times.

The difference between then and now is not found in the existence of “debt” itself, but in the ability to PAY that debt when called upon to do so as was agreed when it was incurred.

Carrier does indeed have terms for things like “money” and “credit. In most dialects, “money” is sooniya, a loan from Cree, and “credit” is jaboon. A “dollar” is dustl’us, a “quarter” gwada’, a “half-dollar” ‘uk’uz. There is also a verb “to pay” which, however, has no simple citation form.

Prior to European contact, money was not in use, but there was extensive trade with the coast. Commerce was hardly a foreign notion.

@ Harbinger, there is a Carrier word for debt which actually means owing credit; “jamboun” and “sooniah” means money.

Oops, bill poser beat me to the words and it is jaboon not jamboun, lol Thanks bill :-)

All languages that are in current usage adjust their words to provide current relevency.

How it is done, depends on the use required and the degree that those who create the words wish to stay “pure” to the language.

Germans are quick to pick up english words for modern applications. Thus, while for a while the word for computer was the german word Rechner = calculator or Speicher = storage, the word used is Komputer.

Even when the money changed to Euros, the name for the coin that is valued at 1/100th of a Euro is “cent”.

Listen to almost anyone who grew up with a foreign language until, say 10 or so, then moved into an english speaking country, and they will tend to speak a combination of German and English to German speakers.

So, how much of that is actually going on with Carrier. Airplane, car, train, highway, groceries, ice cream …. I mean there are more words required to converse about today’s world than befor contact aboriginals ever had in the first place.

Bring someone back to this time from the english speaking colonials 3 to 4 centuries ago, and they would have very similar problems adjusting.

This is not an aboriginal phenomenon.

There are many Carrier words for new things and concepts. One way to say “airplane” is nut’o-i, “car” benugoo-i, “train” yunk’unukes, “highway” tiwhucho, “groceries” ‘ut’alh-i. I’ve mostly heard “ice cream” referred to by the English term but I think some people say nedo ningwus “white people’s Indian ice cream”. Some words are borrowed, e.g. lugarat “carrots”. In other cases, traditional words have their meaning extended or shifted. For example, k’a originally meant “arrow” but currently means “rifle shell”. Some of the innovations are humorous. “mustard” is ts’oodunetsan or skehtsan depending on dialect, in both cases meaning “children’s feces”, presumably after the colour and texture rather than flavour.

Interesting discussion. Something a bit rare on here. Noice to see for a change. Thanks for that billposer.

Of course to keep it a bit light humoured, it does beg the question, how can you be sure it does not refer to flavour.? LOL

“chet wa chenchens-tumi.
chet chawa-tumi-yap.”

Thanks for the support, univ. That’s probably the first post in Squamish on this site ever.

Speaking about language, actual meaning of words and idiom.

I am always fascinated with translating a language to another as opposed to interpreting a languuage. I just noticed the words in the picture.

English = Journey with us – literal translation is “Voyage avec nous”
French = Embarquez dans l’aventure – literal translation is “Embark on an adventure”

It looks as if the French group and the English group worked separately on a slogan.

So, compared to Latin, how alive are these languages and dialects?

Bil Poser commented on the number of speakers of some of the first nation languages in BC, under the 21 June 2013 article of aboriginal national day. But someone smoked all the comments under that article.

I guess all of first nation languages in BC are now endangered and some have less than 50 speakers. It is almost impossible to revive a majority of them and there are not enough experts, enough linguistic resources on them and the rate of transmission to children are very low, even lower than Gaelic in Scotland. Mostly because of residential school policies.

With some effort, out of tens of languages and dialects a handful can survive and be standardized. Click on this map to see the names/regions: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/abed/images/map2.jpg

(Bill, chen kw’enman-tumi.)

By the way, UNBC does have a little bit of symbolic use of aboriginal languages. The university motto, ‘En cha huna, is Carrier, and one of the residences is called neyoh “our house”.