Talk:Syilx

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 September 2019 and 31 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): EJ Fedec.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:34, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2019 and 2 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Skayu.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:34, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Note on redlinked governments
These can all be at least stubbed using the links given; once they are please make sure to use categories such as "First Nations governments in British Columbia", which is for organizations; the cat used here already "First Nations in British Columbia" is for ethno/people articles; material on Okanagan language article is pending (not even the ONA has their page on it up yet...), and it would have a different category from these as well.Skookum1 00:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

aboriginal name of Kettle River (Columbia River)
Please see Talk:Kettle River (Columbia River).Skookum1 07:17, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of flags an issue
I just noticed the maple leaf and stars and stripes added to this and wonder if it's inappropriate. No other tribal-nation pages have the US/Can national emblems, rather they have their own. I'm not an Okanagan but suspect this is a touchy subject, most likely an offensive one. Sovereignty is a big word on both sides of the border, native-politics-wise. The only relevant flag that should be in that box is the Okanagan Nation's own, and/or any of its sub-flags for each of its groups. I'll ref this to the indigenous peoples' wikiproject for further comment as I think it's important and, if I'm right, nipped in the bud. I know many BC First Nations would REALLY not like to have the Maple Leafe on pages about THEM, let's put it that way.Skookum1 18:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. The nomination was unhelpful, because it listed several general Google searches. Per WP:COMMONNAME, "a search of Google Books and News Archive should be defaulted to before a web search, as they concentrate reliable sources"; the general searches are barely relevant, and the nom's Gbooks searches because they did not exclude "books, llc" (a republisher of Wikipedia articles). The only other evidence of common usage was that supplied by Labattblueboy, whose searches excluded "wikipedia". I redid the searches excluding "books, llc", and it did not change the figures. Labattblueboy's results show that reliable sources have begun shifting towards the Syilx name, and that Sylix is narrowly the preferred term in recent usage on Gscholar. Gbooks still returns a 2:1 preference for the older "Okanagan people". Per WP:SOURCE, academic sources are preferable, so the common usage evidence is inconclusive. However, it was also noted that the current title "Okanagan people" could refer to "people from the Okanagan region", whereas Sylix is unambiguous. This approach is supported by the policy WP:NATURAL, which permits resolving ambiguity by using "an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title". On that basis, I weigh the discussion as a consensus to move to Syilx, despite that fact that mnay of the support !votes appeared to have little basis in policy. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:16, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Okanagan people → Syilx – Syilx is the modern name used by http://www.syilx.org which covers all peoples of this group and is the homepage of the Okanagan Nation Alliance. As the main article for this people, this title should reflect that usage, also being in consistency with other main articles in the same topic area where the native endonym applies. "Okanagan people" if left in place would also invite a speedy category-rename to Category:Okanagan people or to, even worse, Category:Okanagan. Both have PRIMARYTOPIC conflicts and so disambiguation problems as has happened with Category:Squamish/Category:Squamish people, where the main article's name-change predicated such an ill-advised and hard-to-resolve category name-change. Re google results: A complicating factor, also, in the current name - other than its direct implication of PRIMARYTOPIC as "People from the Okanagan" is that the Okanagan Indian Band in Vernon's name is 'in the way', and already somebody provided their name for themselves in the intro to this article as if it were for all Syilx/Okanagans.
 * A google search for the American spelling "Okanogan people" (excluding wikipedia in the search terms) returns 4,920 hits
 * another for the Canadian spelling returns 4,920 hits also
 * for "Syilx" excluding Wikipedia there are [https://www.google.co.th/search?q=syilx+-wikipedia&oq=syilx+-wikip&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57.3103j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8 11,800 hits.
 * for "Skoyelpi", a term used by the Colville branch of this people, there are 391 results
 * On Google Books the "Okanagan people" spelling gets 1,400 results
 * On Google Books the "Okanogan people" spelling gets only 150 results
 * the "Syilx" gets only 519, but if older publications are excluded from the "Okanagan people" search the comparison may be more equitable in favour of Syilx.
 * there were no results for Syilx on the google news archive search and only one for "Okanogan people, the American spelling of "Okanogan people" returned no results

Re WP:UE and WP:UCN there are qualifications on both pages about conciseness and consistency within topic areas; the argument that this is "not English" doesn't wash as the term is used in English, as per the google cited, and in fact is more common, so UCN/COMMONNAME is not a viable reason to refuse this move.
 * per that last point, the RMs on Talk:St'at'imc, Talk:Tsilhqot'in, Talk:Secwepemc, Talk:Nlaka'pamux and Talk:Ktunaxa, also all main articles for their categories, should be consulted and the consistency of name convention in this topic area that they represent definitely applies here, as do the reasons why such names are now relatively common in BC English, in some cases they are now the only term in use, despite the COMMONNAME arguments that were used to oppose those RMs (which were fallacious). The case of the Sto:lo applies also, though there IS no other common name for them and even has a special character in it, like Skwxwu7mesh and Sta7mes where the '7' has brought loud complaints of "not English" and "gibberish", so the issues of the RM and CfD were not as problematic as for St'at'imc etc; Dakelh was recently returned to that title by RM, partly because the alleged "Common name" for them (Carrier people) does not apply to all of them, and Dakelh, like other such names, is nowadays common and the increasingly accepted norm.  Consistency is the overriding issue here; Syilx is not as common a term in English as Sto:lo or Secwepemc or Nlaka'pamux, but it is still the more widely used term for the whole group, particularly when older ethnographic and linguistic materials are excluded. Relisted. BDD (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2014 (UTC) Skookum1 (talk) 07:34, 10 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Neutral Reliable sources have begun shifting towards the Syilx name. For instance, Google scholar gives Syilx a slight advantage when we limit the search to sources no other than 2005 (94 hits for "Okanagan people" and 99 hits for Syilx .) If we change that to only looking at since 2010 than lean towards Syilx becomes greater. (53 hits for Okanagan people and 71 hits for Syilx. However, that shift has entirely taken place yet. Google books, when examining sources since 2005, gives 627 hit for "Okanagan people" -wikipedia and 297 hits for "Syilx" -wikipedia . Even when shifted to only sources since 2010 the leads goes to Okanagan people (148 hits to 297) General Google search does show 11,600 hits for Syilx -wikipedia but "Okanagan nation" -wikipedia results in 22K hits  ("Okanagan nation" -wikipedia -alliance produces 6.4K hits ). Sources appear split, so I'm not certain which way is more appropriate on this one. I see the article being well served with either title.--Labattblueboy (talk) 06:31, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the extra googles in support of the proper name, but there are two three issues that go beyond the article itself:
 * This article's current title may be used to speedy rename Category:Syilx to something very awkward and which is out of context with the other parallel categories in Category:First Nations of British Columbia per the "consistency" and "existing conventions" passages in [[WP:UCN}]
 * By the same token this title is out of line with the bulk of the main articles attached to that category, against "consistency" and "existing conventions" in WP:UCN and also the various arguments in support of native endonyms (I don't mean mine) in the RMs on other main articles last year.Skookum1 (talk) 11:19, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The geographic namespace conflict is not served well at all, Okanagan is by far the PRIMARYTOPIC of the name; "Okanagan people" as per the proponent of Category:Squamish implies "people from FOO" and again any attempt to "match" the current title with a speedy rename of the category will open up a needless quagmire and yet more needles wrangling; your googles and mine point the right direction here......even on a basis or RS and COMMONNAME, narrowly applied as they all too often are, the googles here show that Sylix is the more accepted, and clearly more modern term. I know the argument that such articles should reflect what these people prefer to be called falls on deaf ears in Wikipedia, but in this case RS/COMMONNAME very clearly applies.Skookum1 (talk) 11:53, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I happened to come across the naming conventions for indigenous peoples and tribes and found, point-blank, "How the group self-identifies should be considered." Appended to that, but a separate statement, is "If their autonym is commonly used in English, it would be the best article title. Any terms regarded as derogatory by members of the ethnic group in question should be avoided."  Note please that it says nothing about being the MOSTCOMMON in English, only "commonly used", which this surely is, including by of course the people(s) themselves.Skookum1 (talk) 15:20, 15 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose "Okanagan" still seems to be the more common, and it certainly is for the language. — kwami (talk) 13:03, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Reply Seems most common to you but you never pull yourself out of linguistics textbooks or deign to consider anything unfamiliar to you as valid. Reality is "Syilx" is the modern self-identifier for this group of peoples and that the geographic name confusion re "Okanagan people" is considerable, if you lived in this part of the world which you clearly don't.  WP:ETHNICGROUP, that guideline you ignored while crafting your pet one that you have jackbooted all over IPNA articles without any discussion (though now calling for one), says very clearly How the group self-identifies should be considered. If their autonym is commonly used in English, it would be the best article title."  "Okanagan" in native terms is the Okanagan Indian Band which is another name confusion that you are of course oblivious to even if you did care about such things.Skookum1 (talk) 13:10, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Support as there appears to be a slight preference to the newer name, making it the common name. At the same time the guideline, Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes), agrees with this. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 22:38, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Support as per Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes). Stuartyeates (talk) 23:59, 27 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 02:38, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
 * comment One reason Syilx was chosen as the title here long ago was because of the differing spellings of "Okanagan" in Canada and "Okanogan" in the US, though the Okanagan Nation Alliance only uses the Canadian form of the spelling and it does include Colville in the US. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skookum1 (talk • contribs) 06:42, 29 March 2014‎
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

material from German Wikipedia
German Wikipedia often has much more in-depth coverage of various indigenous topics than English Wikipedia does; I found Sinkaietk for the peoples of the Southern Okanagan, from Osoyoos southwards, there. An Expand German template might be added to this article but I'm unsure as the source article is now about the whole of the Okanagan people; here is a googletranslate version of that page.Skookum1 (talk) 03:48, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Move to Sylix, should be Syilx
This page got moved to a misspelled name. It should be Syilx, not Sylix. Pfly (talk) 02:46, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that; now fixed. I fixed it as soon as it came to my attention. If you had pinged me, I'd have got to it sooner. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:49, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Relationship question
The article states "The Okanagan are closely related to the Spokan, Sinixt, Nez Perce..." I'm neither Syilx nor Niimíipu, but in the course of my linguistic preparation -- many years ago -- I learned that those two language families are well distinct. The Syilx clearly have a close political relationship with the Niimíipu today, but is it accurate to say that they are "closely related", which implies common cultural origins? FWIW. Laodah 19:26, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Image use
I wonder if the image used here is inappropriate given that it pictures an Indigenous family in 1918, when the Canadian government was actively trying to eradicate Indigeneity in Canada (See timeline). The entire framing of the image is one of a colonized Indigenous family, rather than how the Syilx people portray themselves on their website. @CESchreyer, perhaps you have insight? Cmadland (talk) 15:26, 21 February 2023 (UTC)


 * @Cmadland Thank you for tagging me - my INLG 380 with Nsyilxcen students class will be editing Wikipedia this term, so we will discuss this together and decide if it is appropriate to update. CESchreyer (talk) 21:38, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * My students discussed and one student @SB.xixʷutəm shared that the photo represented members of their family and so they have edited to include their names. We discussed including a more contemporary photo as well, but have not decided on one yet. CESchreyer (talk) 04:28, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

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