Talk:Nisga'a

Website
Have a look at our website: http://www.nisgaahall.ca

Also have a look at my website, it is total information on our culture, history, language and traditions.

http://www.citytel.net/~nisga1/

- 19:38, 2005 May 14


 * cool. thanks for the links. peace – ishwar  (speak)  03:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

need for separate nation/ethno article vs. one for the Nisga'a Nation government
Just a note to mention the need to create a more fully-fleshed out Nisga'a cultural/historical article, and also for a separate article, even a stub-like one, for the Nisga'a government; this is to conform to emerging standards within the Indigenous Peoples Wikiproject; the reason is that in many cases ethno/culture articles and government/organization articles do NOT coincide; this is more or less not the case here, but making the separation between articles will help with indexing and x-referencing and just being, well, precise.Skookum1 20:20, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps more importantly, we need a separate and expanded article on the 2000 Nisga'a agreement. - TheMightyQuill 06:03, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Came by looking for certain declaration date, but...
This caught my eye:


 * ''The land-claim's settlement was the first formal treaty between a First Nation and the Province of British Columbia in modern times.

Actually, I believe the proper wording there is ...and the Province of British Columbia. Period, ever, that's it. The only prior treaties (I think) were with the Colony of British Columbia - and wait a minute, with the Colony of Vancouver Island, that is. I don't think there were any with the Province, unless the Treaty 6 areas were somehow acknowledged by the early BC regime when it joined Confederation (?).Skookum1 07:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

PS What I'd been looking for is the date of the Nisga'a Declaration of the 1890s (1880s or so) and the subsequent political lobbying/organization of the Nisga'a chiefs, both within Nisga'a Lands and in concert with other First Nations; this for a redlink I left on the Declaration of the Lillooet Tribe article. I'd like there to be an available Wiki representation/listing of all such documents in BC history; i.e. the assertions of sovereignty and self-rule which underpin the current claims debate/context, which most people don't know existed/went on. It was declarations like the Nisga'a and Lillooet ones that helped trip over the Potlach Law, because these guys were making too much sense and, in fact, had a lot of support in the non-native community (until after the Great War anyway, which changed the political context on the ground and also wiped out a lot of the prior settlers who had become pro-native during their tenure here (in-migrant Brits in the remittance man days tended to side with the natives, at least rhetorically; it was the governments and corporationswho didn't want their investment bases harmed that didn't want the politiciking, IMO, not the moneyed and often highly educated and small-l liberal in-migrants from the Auld Sod. Anyway, that's a long original research-y kind of thing to discuss, but the idea here is that the BC and BC First Nations history Wikipages can do a lot in the way of providing basic materials, as well as contexts that are habitually left out of more controlled editorial environments (e.g. curriculum, government pronouncements etc.).Skookum1 07:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

List of external links in main text/body
I just noticed the list of Nisga'a organizations and governments in the body of the text is made out of external links; those belong only in the "External links" section and what should be in the main body is, if anything, plain text, but in the case of needed articles - as all of these are, or most of them maybe - it's best to redlink them (see Sto:lo and St'at'imc, although I'm working my way through all tribal councils and band governments throughout BC to bluelink everything with at least stubs, and appropriately cat (as it "to cat") their various categories and interrelationships. I tried going back through the history to see when these went in, but it's back quite a ways before my last visit so I must not have noticed on the first time through; this is one of the more thorough First Nations pages for BC, by the way, and has taken advantage of Wiki's article-buildling depth to build profiles of Nisga'a people/personalities in ways not yet done for other BC First Nations; impressive, but needs work to bring it into line with Wiki standards, and I daresay a Featured Article status once all its subarticles are done and its content and those of related argticles (e.g. Nisga'a Nation, which may redirect here - ? - should be for the Nisga'a government, this page is about history, culture, people, ethnography....) is fleshed out; I'd imagine there's already a separate article on the Nisga'a Treaty and the negotiation history behind it - ?? - should be high-priority anyway, if not extant, whatever its proper article/agreement/document title....).Skookum1 08:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks; tried to fix Laxgalts'ap but still not sure about why that unicode so leaving it until you fix it; is that an underline-g or ??. And I'm not sure about this, and of course you would be, but if the appropriate name for the Nisga'a government is Nisga'a Lisims, that should probably be the main government article instead of Nisga'a Nation; I've been intending on some kind of list or history on the early/ongoing efforts to address constitutional/treaty issues since colonial times, and so of course the Nisga'a efforts from c.1890 or so are front-and-centre; turns up in bios of Premiers, judges and such I've been reading up on; docs involved might be best put in WikiSource, although for now there's ones like Declaration of the Lillooet Tribe I'd put in main Wikipedia, but apparently they're "source documents" so should go to WikiSource instead; that would include texts of historical material as well as current constitutional/treaty material.Skookum1 19:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Nisga'a Lisims it is, so any government reference should refer to the Nisga'a Lisims Government with the corresponding Nisga'a term: Wilp Si’ayuukhl Nisga’a (still figuring out unicode, but there is underline 'k' and 'g'. Historically obviously the tribal council. No more bands in the old 'Indian Affairs' definition there anymore, so just the villages to add on my part. The history of the land question and plight should make for some good reading here, too.--Keefer4 20:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Postscript to the above; I just noticed inthe nifobox someone has placed "band of clans" with links for band going to F=First Nations government etc; yet this is not FN governmetn according to the usual meaning of that,i.e. not an Indian Act government; I'm wondering how to describe "traditional government" as a title/cat as there's a big difference, even though the composition of band governments is (if things are ever settled) likely going to look very muchy like the reinstated traditional governments; Nisga'a is the only one in BC that I'm aware of where the traditional government has superseded the colonialist one; those in the Douglas Treaties are not the same FWIU. Anyway just notes, was poking around, found the territory maps while looking for something else on BC gov maps (all pay-for in some way now....).Skookum1 (talk) 19:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The apostrophe in Nisga'a...
...does it represent a glottal stop? Is that generally a fair assumption when I see First Nations words with apostrophes in them? Stevecudmore (talk) 13:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It may, I don't know any Nisga'a.....but the apostrophe can represent a bunch of things depending on which native language, and which orthographic system, is at question. Many BC native languages use '7' for the glottal stop - Skwxwu7mesh for example, and it's fairly standard in Salishan languages, also found in Nuu-chah-nulth, not sure about the others; I think Nlaka'pamux may use teh apostrophe (as in the case of their name, though not sure that's a glottal stop).  In "St'at'imcets" the /t'/ is a lateral fricative - /tl/ or /lh/ - usually rendered in previous spellings by "tl", as in the old spellings Stlatliumh and Stl'atl'imx.   The piont of the new orthography was to make St'at'imc spelling distinct from that of English; but now they insist on using their spelling in English, instead of the anglicized form (Stlatliumh, which is now pronounced "incorrect" or "debased").  In Chinookan and in "official" modern Chinuk-Wawa, the /t'/ is a ejective - t'alapus (coyote) is the word that comes to mind; kind of like a Korean double-t /tt/......given taht all these languages are part off the same sprachbund, which is to say they share a common set of phonemes despite vast lingstuic differences, it would have been nice if they'd have all settled on teh same orthographic system......but taht's too political to accomplish ((neighbouring tribes, even within the same language area, often choose different spelling systems just to not have the same as their neighbours....).Skookum1 (talk) 14:49, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure but I think Tlingit may use the colon, or the period, for the glottal stop.Skookum1 (talk) 14:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The word really ends phonologically in a glottal stop, which is reflected in the apostrophe. Phonetically, the preceding vowel is weakly rearticulated after the syllable-final glottal stop, which is what is reflected in the following "a".Bill (talk) 01:28, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Split needed - Nisga'a vs. Nisga'a Nation
Nisga'a Nation is needed as a government page; there may be a more complete title possible, I'll check around. This article covers a lot of nice ethno stuff but the infobox is government oriented and shoudl be on a government-type page, which can have more about the treaty proceedings since "way back then"...also internal politicsl history of the band(s), historical chiefs/councillors, details of lands etc; this page should focus on ethnographic/cutlural/historical materials distinct from stuff to do with the government and related materials..Skookum1 (talk) 19:36, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Equivalent splits exist, e.g. Secwepemc vs Shuswap Nation Tribal Council/Northern Shuswap Tribal Council, Haida/Council of the Haida Nation. A few others need doing yet e.g. Nuxalk,Nuxalk Nation but all in time; this one's just priority-enough and has enough independent ethno content to make it worth doing.Skookum1 (talk) 19:40, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

the doors faced the east
Really? That's kind of unusual on the Northwest coast where houses more often opened towards the water. East is a strange direction to favor in the mountainous topography of the region as well--the sun is as likely to be seen in the south as the east most mornings. I'd like to see a citation for this claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.185.177.88 (talk) 15:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 23:05, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Nisga’a people → Nisga'a – target is redirect to current title; NB original Nisga'a was moved by JorisV on Aug 24 2011 to Nisga’a without comment, perhaps to avoid an extant redirect? Main article was moved by Kwami from "Nisga’a" to current "Nisga’a people" without comment and in violation of WP:UNDAB. Haven't looked close, but the /’/ character is anamalous in such titles e.g. Mi'kmaq, St'at'imc, Kwakawka'wakw. Current proposal is to revert to usual ordinary-English apostrophe Skookum1 (talk) 05:28, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. We have Wikipedia has policy that the people should go at "XXX people" and the language at "XXX language", with "XXX" being a dab page, see WP:NCL. If you don't like that, try to change the policy. I'm neutral w.r.t. using an apostrophe. --JorisvS (talk) 09:10, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "We" is not all of Wikipedia obviously, it's you, Kwami and Uysvdi and other NCL regulars concocting a bad guideline (which is not a "policy") that is in conflict with various others. WP:UNDAB has been ignored by all of you as has what WP:CRITERIA and WP:ETHNICGROUP have to say about this. The smugness in your suggestion for me to "try to change the guideline" in in a space dominated by the same small cabal of users, two - no three - have engaged in insults against me is beyond smug to the point of ridiculousness; an RfC may be required to change that guideline, as it's clear I'm shut out of any process involving  that group of editors, who have been relentlessly contrarian and hostile to anything upsetting the applecart they carefully concocted to please themselves...and no one else. That strange apostrophe appears to have been employed to bypass redirects = surreptitious.  Also, in common English these people go by "the Nisga'a" as is also the case with the Haida, Heiltsuk and others whose move to "FOO" you have opposed; "Nisga'a people" as your pal Uysvdi complained about Category:Squamish people means "people who are Nisga'a.  You linguists should really get with the times.Skookum1 (talk) 09:31, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You've already been opposed at your mass suggestion, but you immediately try again at the individual articles without reference to the others and you accuse me of being smug? We Wikipedia has policy about this, and these articles should not be moved until that has changed. Discussing the policy is just where any sound arguments should currently be made. I will listen to your arguments with an open mind, but you should also be prepared to listen to counterarguments in the same way. Then maybe we can find a way to improve it and hence Wikipedia. As for the category, why not just rename those? --JorisvS (talk) 09:54, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * And why shouldn't I given the closure on the basis of quantitative counts of the "votes" instead of qualitative examination of each item?? His decision had nothing to do with your precious "policy" (guideline) nor any of the ones I cited myself which clearly are in conflict with it.  And I was criticized for not filing each one separately, so I did given the WP:BATHWATER problem.Skookum1 (talk) 09:59, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, I see mostly opposes that have nothing to do with the bulkiness of the move request. There is a certain smugness in suggesting that the opposers' arguments are necessaily flawed and that the closer did not consider the arguments. --JorisvS (talk) 10:17, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "mostly opposes" either in reference to certain items, some of which I withdrew for dab page reasons, at least one "procedural oppose" for not filing them individually; and "opposes" which cite your guideline but ignore WP:ETHNICGROUP; WP:UNDAB it has been explained to me is only the work of two editors; but only one authored the section that keeps on being cited from WP:NCLANG and only a handful were consulted on only that guideline's talkpage and CRITERIA's comments about respecting existing, evident consensus (the "old consensus" re using "FOO" to save issues about people/nation/tribe and "FOO people") which was laid out long before Kwami concocted his own guideline; I continue to assert that "FOO" and "FOO language" are NOT equally primary topics, the basis of NCLANG is a fallacy and only the work of a small handful of editors who are resistant to any criticism of their agenda.Skookum1 (talk) 11:19, 20 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose until the issue is addressed properly. These should be discussed at a centralized location.
 * There was a discussion once on whether the ethnicity should have precedence for the name, and it was decided it shouldn't. That could be revisited.  But it really should be one discussion on the principle, not thousands of separate discussions at every ethnicity in the world over whether it should be at "X", "Xs", or "X people".  — kwami (talk) 12:23, 20 March 2014 (UTC)


 * "These should be discussed at a centralized location." LOL that's funny I already tried that and got criticized for mis-procedure. Your pet guideline was never discussed at a central location nor even brought up with other affected/conflicting guidelines nor any relevant wikiprojects.  And as for "There was a discussion once on whether the ethnicity should have precedence for the name, and it was decided it shouldn't" that's fine to say about a discussion that you presided over on an isolated guideline talkpage that you didn't invite anyone but your friends into..... WP:ETHNICGROUPS is clear on the variability of "X", "Xs", or "X people" and says nothing being people mandatorily added as you rewrote your guideline to promote/enact.  It says quite the opposite; the CRITERIA page also says that prior consensus should be respected, and those who crafted it an attempt to contact them towards building a new consensus done; and calls for consistency within related topics which "we" long ago had devised the use of "FOO" and often "PREFERRED ENDONYM" (for Canada especially, where such terms are common English now and your pet terms are obsolete and in disuse and often of clearly racist origin e.g. Slavey people).  The crafters of the ethnicities and tribes naming convention (which your guideline violates) clearly respected our collective decisions/consensus from long ago re both standalone names without "people/tribe/nation/peoples" unless absolutely necessary and also re the use of endonyms where available; but when I brought it up in the RMs of last year you insulted and baited me and still lost.  Now you want a centralized discussion when you made no such effort yourself and were in fact dismissive about any such effort.  Pfft.  NCLANG fans like to pretend WP:OWNership on this issue, especially yourself as its author but that's a crock.  The way to "address this issue properly" is to examine all of these, but bulk of them needless directs from then-long-standing titles moved by yourself, one by one as I was instructed/advised re the bulk RMs; as case-by-case decisions are needed.  You want a centralized discussion, but never held one yourself.Skookum1 (talk) 12:59, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * No, no-one would criticize you for discussing this rationally. But this multitude of move requests is disruptive. They should all be closed without prejudice. — kwami (talk) 14:35, 20 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Support as per the policy Article titles and the guideline Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes). The section Article titles also applies given that Nisga'a is a redirect here. There is no need to redo any guideline as it already supports the un-disabiguated title. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 23:00, 21 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Forgot about the comment from User:JorisvS. There is no policy that says any such thing as articles must be at "foo people" or "foo language". There are two guidelines, Naming conventions (languages) and Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes). Both of those guides support the un-disambiguated terms as does a policy, Article titles and Article titles. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 23:17, 21 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. An identified people should be the primary topic of a term absent something remarkable standing in the way. bd2412  T 02:37, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per CambridgeBayWeather. In cases where the requested move simply eliminates the word "people", and the destination title is already a simple redirect to the current title, it is clear that guidelines favoring both precision and conciseness support the move. Xoloz (talk) 17:29, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * There was a discussion and a subsequent unanimous vote in favor of explicit disambiguation of people–language pairs. "Nisga'a" can refer to both the people and the language, which means it falls under "Where a common name exists in English for both a people and their language, a title based on that term, with explicit disambiguation, is preferred for both articles". "Nisga'a" was made a dab page in response to this guideline, only to be made a redirect later without discussion. --JorisvS (talk) 15:14, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It was made an illicit TWODAB page without discussion on its talkpage, or notice to WPCANADA/BC or IPNA, based solely on NPA, after five stable years. the NCL contention that language and people articles is utterly false, as borne out by these view stats:
 * "Nisga'a people" was viewed 693 times this month (March)
 * "Nisga'a language" was viewed 79 times this month;
 * That's over an 8:1 ratio in favour of the people article. your pet guideline needs revising; in fact I think it needs to be scrapped and completely rewritten, this time with an eye to facts, not the POVs of people whose primary interest is only linguistics.Skookum1 (talk) 16:02, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, pardon me - those searches were done using the ordinary apostrophe, not the special one this article title was jerry-rigged with, apparently to get around a redirect, just as an endash was used at Heiltsuk-Oowekyala language for the same purpose; with the special apostrophe of the current titles, the results are in the same proportion/ratio:
 * "Nisga’a people" was viewed 2,537 times
 * "Nisga’a language" was viewed 301 times
 * I suggest you raise this matter with your NCL group and revise your guidelines accordingly; similar stats will no doubt by borne out with similar results across all the other RMs you have copypasted your NCL mantra to. Revise your guideline, it's flawed and has serious POV and bad-information problems.Skookum1 (talk) 16:09, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

External links modified
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I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Nisga'a. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120415094001/http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100031252 to http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100031252#chp11

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Assessment comment
Substituted at 01:19, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

History
The history section has a reference to another main article and this reference suggests that it will treat the history of Nisga'a in a more elaborate manner. It does not really make sense to refer to this article on a geological phenomenon, however. 2001:1C02:1907:9500:386E:8041:AF78:187A (talk) 20:58, 10 May 2016 (UTC)