Languages are dying off too fast – Penticton Herald
March 28, 2016
When 89-year-old Alban Michael died last month, something else died with him. The B.C. man was believed to be the last fluent speaker of Nuchatlaht, one of the West Coast aboriginal languages.
It’s not certain that Nuchatlaht is unrecoverable. Some documentary records remain, in the form of written material and audio tapes. So the language could be revived, although it would be a major undertaking.
But this is only one part of a much larger, troubling trend. Of B.C.’s 34 surviving First Nations languages, eight have fewer than a dozen fluent speakers, and none has more than 1,000.
Read More: http://www.pentictonherald.ca/opinion/article_f8b4b012-f54e-11e5-a97d-ef5fb967e6e1.html
