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Courtney Mazzola

Languages In Peril

March 8, 2017

Drafting Starter Articles

Tagish
Tagish, also known as Dene K’e, was once spoken within the Yukon and Carcross territory of Canada [9]. This language is a highly endangered Athabaskan language that is closely related to the neighboring languages Tahltan, Kaska, and Southern Tutchone [3 ]. Tagish is among many other languages within the large language family of Na-Dene languages [4], which includes another group of indigenous North American languages called the Athabaskan languages [5 ].

Tagish became less common partially because native traditions were domesticated and suppressed by colonial administration through writing because there are open ended possibilities inherent in oral dialogue which are impossible to convey through text [8 ]. The most significant impact on the decline of nearly every native language in Canada came when aboriginal children were forced to attend residential schools where they were forbidden to speak their own languages [10 ].

Efforts have been made to preserve some of these suppressed native languages. For example, Southern Tutchone and Tagish languages are being revitalized and protected through an innovative, on-line approach called FirstVoices. FirstVoices is a native language computer database and web-based teaching and development tool [6 ]. Also, the Yukon government began offering native language programs in elementary and high schools [7 ]. The federal government even signed an agreement giving the territory $4.25 million over five years to "preserve, develop and enhance aboriginal languages [2 ]." However, Tagish is not one of the offered native language programs and despite these various efforts, the language is headed toward extinction as there is only one last woman who can use the language with any fluency at all [1. ]