User:Emeraldschreier/Carrier language

This article consists of four pieces of information that will be added to the existing Carrier Language article already on Wikipedia. These pieces of information will contribute to the topics of language vitality, a proposed origin of the Carrier/Dakelh name, information on the language's endangerment status, and probable cause for endangerment.

Language Vitality
Another ongoing revitalization effort is that First Peoples' Cultural Council and its allies have released FirstVoices, a free-to-download online dictionary app. This includes an open source collection of words, songs, phrases, and stories. It also includes a bilingual dictionary of phrases, songs, stories and a kids portal with games in Carrier. (First Peoples Cultural Council, 2020; First Voices, 2000).

Etymology of the Carrier name
According to the Yinka Dene Language Institute (2006), the name Carrier comes from the Sekani language's translation for the Dakelh people, "Aghele." The English term came from the Sekani people because Alexander Mackenzie's Northwest Company first passed through Sekani land before entering Dakelh land and so Europeans learned about the Dakelh people from the Sekani people, who lived nearby in British Columbia.

Status
The UNESCO status of Carrier/Dakelh is "Severely Endangered", which means the language rates an average of 2/5 on UNESCO's 9 factors of language vitality, with 5 being safe and 0 being extinct. According to Dwyer's article on tools and techniques for endangered language assessment and revitalization, the three most critical factors out of the nine are factors numbered one - intergenerational transmission, three - proportion of speakers within the total population, and four - proportion of speakers within the total population. Carrier scores in the "severely endangered" category for all three of these most important factors, as well as most of the nine.

Cause of endangerment
There are two key causes of Carrier's endangered status today, although both are related to conquest.The first is the heavy influence of English, and given that in British Columbia it is the dominant language in education, business, government and media, this makes it much more attractive than learning and speaking Carrier frequently.

Second, forcible language assimilation attempts taken by the Canadian government, specifically residential schools beginning in 1919, have likely had an effect on attitudes towards speaking and learning Carrier that may have contributed to its current endangerment. Carrier speakers may associate speaking their own language with a negative emotional trigger after traumatic experiences in residential schools. Additionally, they may have wanted to protect their children from experiencing what they did and therefore did not teach them Carrier.