Talk:Graham Island

Haida name of Graham Island
Graham Island Haida: Gwaii (?) (dom't miss the :/colon), compare with Moresby Island Haida: Gwaii Haanas. My guess is that Gwaii is the Haida word for island(s). In the case of Graham Island, what is the (?). Peter Horn User talk 01:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * SFAIK "gwaii" means "land"; compare the proper Haida name of Ninstints - Skungwai/SGang Gwaay Llanagaay where "Gwaay" I think means "island" (a diminutive, I'm guessing only though) ("red cod island"). I've never seen the Haida name for Graham; Gwaii Haanas is better known because of the Nat'l Park....Skookum1 (talk) 02:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

If gwaii means land, then Gwaii Haanas would mean land (of) Haanas or Haanas land, but by virtue of its size it (Moresby Island) ia an island and not a land. In Lyell Island I found the following website which may, or may not, be helpful Pacofi Bay Lodge Tour 2. Peter Horn User talk 16:45, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You're confusing the English distinction between "land" and "island" with the Haida perspective/definition....Graham and Moresby are rather large, sort of "mainlands" relatively to smaller items like Anthony Island (which is very small - look at a map). I don't know Haida, good luck finding out, might be worth writing the Old Masset Band Council or the Skidegate Band to ask.  but with any language, you have to think "outside the box" as to the meanings of words and/or their contexts.  Definitions/distinctions as they exist in English may not in another language.Skookum1 (talk) 19:09, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * NB "land" in English can also mean an island - Barent's Land, Newfoundland, Shetland etc.Skookum1 (talk) 19:11, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting. All I can say is that one never stops learning. Does the band have an E-mail address? Peter Horn User talk 19:50, 30 October 2010 (UTC) (was missing)
 * The Alaskan Haida have info@ccthita.org Peter Horn User talk 19:50, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.haidanation.ca/ NB it would help if they can name a publication that has the information in it; otherwise a talklpage notation that you'd received a written reply/explanation from them might suffice, I'm not sure about such citations but I know there's a way to validate them (i.e. if correspondence rather than the name of a publication).`Skookum1 (talk) 19:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

There's actually a Haida-English Dictionary PDF, here, I think. It's a 463 page long poorly scanned typewritten book from 1977, but sure has a lot of info. Translations are terse though. Here's a few I found in the English-Haida section (around pages 430-440): island: gwáay. land: tlak. ocean: síigaay. place: tlak. Curious how tlak is said to mean "place" and "land". In the Haida-English section, on page 200, there's: gwáay, gwáayaay: "island". Not sure if the diacritic is an acute--they are explained in the first part of the document. Anyway, interesting document, even if it doesn't really answer the questions here.

There's also some info here: http://www.haidalanguage.org/ Interesting to read that the southern (Skidegate etc) and northern (Masset etc) dialects are different enough that communication can be difficult. Site also explains the different methods of writing Haida in the latin alphabet (eg, gwaii vs. gwaayaay, etc). Pfly (talk) 22:17, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Doesn't surprise me there's dialect differences between Masset and Skidegate....both are composite communities where relocatees from vanished places like Quna and Tanu moved, each according to ancient alliances/enmities. The Kaigani were from Graham Island before their expulsion, which explains why their dialect is similar to Masset's.  As for "síigaay" meaning "ocean" that kind of puts the lie ot the claim on Dixon Entrance that "the more ancient name is Seegay", i.e. it's not a name it's just a term for ocean and could just as well apply to Hecate Strait or the Gulf of Alaska, by the sound of it.  Native concepts of toponymy are different than ours; e.g. in the Lower Mainland, Halqemeylem placenames are fu8nction/story-specific rather than delineated by geographic items as our notion that hills, creeks etc have names; in their concept it's places that have names, whatever they are, and it might not be obvious to us what the distinctions are; I suspect hte same in other languages, whether St'at'imcets or Haida.  Our geo-conceptual framework is inherited from other Indo-European languages/cultures; we always assume things are equivalent or "fixed" by conceptual frameworks often aren't....Skookum1 (talk) 22:31, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I hadn't noticed that Seegay thing on the Dixon Entrance page. Reminds me of "Whulge" for Puget Sound, which simply means "salt water". Pfly (talk) 10:52, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Beware of Commons!
Removed the link to the Commons category because that includes exclusively files concerning the Graham in the Queen Elizabeth Islands in Nunavut. Please don't relink to that. --85.253.64.90 (talk) 08:22, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

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