The Sound of the Southern Carrier / Dakelh language (Numbers, Greetings & The Book of John)

Carrier is generally regarded as one of three members of the central British Columbia subgroup of Athabaskan, the other two being Babine-Witsuwit'en and Tŝilhqot’in. Carrier proper consists of two regional dialect groups, Dakelh (ᑕᗸᒡ) and Southern Carrier, where the latter is divided into two subgroups, Fraser/Nechakoh and Blackwater which are further subdivided into the individual dialects.

The Fraser/Nechakoh subdivision of Southern Carrier includes the Lheidli, Saik'uz, Nadleh, Nautey, Stelakoh, Stoney Creek, Prince George, and Cheslatta dialects. The Blackwater division includes the Anahim Lake, Red Bluff, Nazko, Kluskus, and Ulkatcho dialects, and is is mutually comprehensible with all other Carrier dialects.

Southern Carrier has an extremely extensive and productive system of noun classifications. It has multiple classification subsystems and they can take place in the same sentence or same verb.

The etymology of 'Carrier'

The name 'Carrier' is a translation of the Sekani name 'aghele' meaning “people who carry things around on their backs", due to the fact that the first Europeans to learn of the Carrier, the Northwest Company explorers led by Alexander Mackenzie, first passed through the territory of the Carriers' Sekani neighbors. The received view of the origin of the Sekani name is that it refers to the distinctive Carrier mortuary practice in which a widow carried her husband's ashes on her back during the period of mourning. An alternative hypothesis is that it refers to the fact that the Dakelh, unlike the Sekani, participated in trade with the coast, which required packing loads of goods over the Grease Trails (also known as the “Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail”).

Carrierprayerbook.png

Writing system

Carrier was formerly written in the Carrier syllabary, or Déné Syllabics, which was devised by missionary and linguist Adrien-Gabriel Morice in 1885. He adapted it from the syllabic writing systems developed for the Athabaskan languages of the Northwest Territories of Canada by Emile Petitot, and from the Cree Syllabics developed by James Evans.

A good deal of scholarly material, together with the first edition of the 'Little Catechism' and the third edition of a 'Prayerbook', is written in the writing system used by the missionary priest Adrien-Gabriel Morice in his scholarly work. This writing system was a somewhat idiosyncratic version of the phonetic transcription of the time. It is subphonemic and was never used by Carrier people themselves, though many learned to read the Prayerbook in it.

The Carrier syllabary was widely used for several decades for such purposes as writing diaries and letters and leaving messages on trees, but began to fade from use in the 1930s. Though the syllabary is no longer used or understood by many people, there has been a recent revival of interest in it and it occasionally appears on plaques and memorials.

In the 1960s, the Carrier Linguistic Committee in Fort St James developed an alternative writing system based on the Latin alphabet, designed to be typed on a standard English typewriter.

It uses numerous digraphs and trigraphs to write the many Carrier consonants not found in English, e.g. ⟨gh⟩ for [ɣ] and ⟨lh⟩ for [ɬ], with an apostrophe to mark glottalization, e.g. ⟨ts'⟩ for the ejective alveolar affricate. Letters generally have their English rather than European values. For example, ⟨u⟩ represents /ə/ while ⟨oo⟩ represents /u/. The only diacritic it uses in its standard form is the underscore, which is written under the sibilants (⟨s̠⟩, ⟨z̠⟩, ⟨t̠s̠⟩, and ⟨d̠z̠⟩) to indicate that the consonant is laminal denti-alveolar rather than apical alveolar. An acute accent is sometimes used to mark high tone, but tone is not routinely written in Dakelh.

Currently, the Latin-inspired CLC script is the most commonly used writing system for Dakelh.

Syntax

In general terms, Carrier is a head-final language: the verb comes at the end of the clause, adpositions are postpositions rather than prepositions, and complementizers follow their clause. However, it is not consistently head-final: in head-external relative clauses, the relative clause follows the head noun. Carrier has both head-internal and head-external relative clauses. The subject usually precedes the object if one is present.

Carrier is an 'everything-drop' language. A verb can form a grammatical sentence by itself. It is not in general necessary for the subject or object to be expressed overtly by a noun phrase or pronoun.

Contact with other languages

Dakelh is neighbored on the west by Babine-Witsuwit'en and Haisla, to the north by Sekani, to the southeast by Shuswap, to the south by Chilcotin, and to the southwest by Nuxalk. Furthermore, in the past few centuries, with the westward movement of the Plains Cree, there has been contact with the Cree from the East. Dakelh has borrowed from some of these languages, but apparently not in large numbers. Loans from Cree include [məsdus] ('cow') from Cree (which originally meant "buffalo" but extended to "cow" already in Cree) and [sunija] ('money, precious metal'). There are also loans from languages that do not directly neighbor Dakelh territory. A particularly interesting example is [maj] ('berry, fruit'), a loan from Gitksan, which has been borrowed into all Dakelh dialects and has displaced the original Athabascan word.

European contact has brought loans from a number of sources. The majority of demonstrable loans into Dakelh are from French, though it is not generally clear whether they come directly from French or via Chinook Jargon. Loans from French include [liɡok] ('chicken') (from French le coq 'rooster'), [lisel] (from le sel 'salt'), and [lizas] ('angel'). As these examples show, the French article is normally incorporated into the Dakelh borrowing. A single loan from Spanish is known: [mandah] ('canvas, tarpaulin'), apparently acquired from Spanish-speaking packers.

The trade language Chinook Jargon came into use among Dakelh people as a result of European contact. Most Dakelh people never knew Chinook Jargon. It appears to have been known in most areas primarily by men who had spent time freighting on the Fraser River. Knowledge of Chinook Jargon may have been more common in the southwestern part of Dakelh country due to its use at Bella Coola. The southwestern dialects have more loans from Chinook Jargon than other dialects. For example, while most dialects use the Cree loan described above for "money", the southwestern dialects use [tʃikəmin], which is from Chinook Jargon. The word [daji] ('chief') is a loan from Chinook Jargon.

European contact brought many new objects and ideas. The names for some were borrowed, but in most cases terms have been created using the morphological resources of the language, or by extending or shifting the meaning of existing terms. Thus, [tɬʼuɬ] now means not only "rope" but also "wire", while [kʼa] has shifted from its original meaning of "arrow" to mean "cartridge" and [ʔəɬtih] has shifted from "bow" to "rifle". [hutʼəp], originally "leeches" now also means "pasta". A microwave oven is referred to as [ʔa benəlwəs] ('that by means of which things are warmed quickly'). "Mustard" is [tsʼudənetsan] ('children's feces'), presumably after the texture and color rather than the flavor.

 Place names in Dakelh

Here are the Dakelh names for some of the major places in Dakelh territory, written in the Carrier Linguistic Committee writing system:

Sign saying "Wheni Lheidli T'enneh ts'inli" meaning “We are Lheidli T'enneh” in the Lheidli dialect.

Sign saying "Wheni Lheidli T'enneh ts'inli" meaning “We are Lheidli T'enneh” in the Lheidli dialect.

Fluent Speakers

Figures reported in 2014 stated about 680 fluent speakers of Carrier, and another 1,380 people with some knowledge of the language.

According to a 2016 census conducted by the Government of Canada, there were 1,270 fluent speakers of the Carrier language. Among the 1,270 speakers, 1,045 have the language as a single mother tongue and 225 have the language as one of their mother tongues.

Status

Like most of the languages of British Columbia, Dakelh is an endangered language. Only about 10% of Dakelh people now speak the Dakelh language, hardly any of them children. Members of the generation following that of the last speakers can often understand the language but they do not contribute to its transmission.

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.

Revitalization and Maintenance Efforts

Carrier is taught as a second language in both public and band schools throughout the territory. This instruction provides an acquaintance with the language but has not proven effective in producing functional knowledge of the language. Carrier has also been taught at the University of Northern British Columbia, the College of New Caledonia, and the University of British Columbia. Several communities have underway mentor-apprentice programs and language nests.

The Yinka Dene Language Institute (YDLI) is charged with the maintenance and promotion of Dakelh language and culture. Its activities include research, archiving, curriculum development, teacher training, literacy instruction, and production of teaching and reference materials.

Prior to the founding of YDLI in 1988 the Carrier Linguistic Committee, a group based in Fort Saint James affiliated with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, produced a number of publications in Dakelh, literacy materials for several dialects, a 3000-entry dictionary of the Stuart Lake dialect, and various other materials.

The Carrier Linguistic Committee is largely responsible for literacy among younger speakers of the language. The Carrier Bible Translation Committee produced a translation of the New Testament that was published in 1995. An adaptation to Blackwater dialect appeared in 2002.

Documentation efforts have been varied and the extent of documentation differs considerably from dialect to dialect. By far the best-documented dialect is the Stuart Lake dialect, of which Father Adrien-Gabriel Morice published a massive grammar and dictionary. More recent work includes the publication of some substantial pieces of text by the Carrier Linguistic Committee, the publication of a grammar sketch, and the on-going creation of a large electronic dictionary, with a corresponding print version, that contains earlier material, including Morice's, as well as much new material. For other dialects, there are print and/or electronic dictionaries ranging from 1,500 or so entries up to over 9,000.

FirstVoices Language Learning

FirstVoices Website

FirstVoices is an online indigenous language archiving and learning resource administered by the First Peoples' Cultural Council of British Columbia, Canada. Dakelh/Southern Carrier language is one of the languages documented on the website. Information on alphabets, words, phrases, songs, and stories are available. Both orthography and voice recordings are provided on the website. Games and a kids portal are also available for pre-readers to engage with the language.

FirstVoices App

The Nazko-Dakelh mobile application has a bilingual dictionary and a collection of Dakelh/Southern Carrier language phrases that are archived on the FirstVoices website. It is available for free on both Apple and Android mobile operating systems.

Download a script charts for Carrier (Excel)

Cascadia Bioregion Atlas: A Collaborative Student Atlas from Western Washington University

The Cascadia Bioregion Atlas is a collaboratively written living atlas of the Cascadia Bioregion created by GIS Certificate candidates at Western Washington University with guidance by Dr. Aquila Flower. New maps and datasets will be added in future academic years.

the Cascadia DOB is proud to partner with the University of Washington GIS Certificate Program

The Cascadia Department of Bioregion is excited to partner with the University of Washington GIS Certificate program to work with a team of students to develop Cascadia related applications. This is also very exciting in that the Department of Bioregion just received our nonprofit ESRI ArcGIS online and desktop versions, so getting these set up and functioning to be able to pull data will be a huge boon for students and volunteers.

The Edge Prize: Applications are Open! Presented by the Salmon Nation and Terran Collective.

The Edge Prize: Applications are Open! Presented by the Salmon Nation and Terran Collective.

The Edge Prize is your opportunity to share what works, big or small, and find the others who want to join you, fund you, learn from you, or replicate your efforts locally. This is not a business plan competition. This is not a “pitch” competition. It’s not really a contest at all! This is about sharing what you’re already doing, why it’s working, and why it gives you hope.

Cooperative Gardens Commission: 4th Seed Distribution Applications are Open

Cooperative Gardens Commission: 4th Seed Distribution Applications are Open

Founded in March 2020, the Cooperative Gardens Commission (CGC) is a grassroots collective working to support food sovereignty efforts in response to COVID-19. The pandemic heightened the persistent injustice in our food system, falling especially hard on BIPOC, poor, undocumented, and otherwise marginalized communities. Our primary work is focused on distributing seeds to Seed Hubs, who function as central distributors of free seeds and information to their communities. In this capacity, CGC focuses on historically oppressed communities by prioritizing hubs already working with those most affected by the injustices of the pandemic and encouraging seed hub organizers who aren’t working with those groups to do so.

What is Bioregionalism? Great webcards using the DOB by the Alliance for a Viable Future

The Department of Bioregion is proud to be included in this post by Alliance for a Viable Future which also cites our executive director Brandon Letsinger. Check out more about their organization and learn more at: https://www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/

and give them a follow @allianceforaviablefuture

We were honored to be included in this post by Alliance for a Viable Future. Check out more about their organization and learn more at: https://www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/

and give them a follow @allianceforaviablefuture

Sign up for a Copy of the Cascadia Spoke

The Cascadia SPOKE is a new community publication to promote place based realities and provide a written hub where diverse voices, artists, poets and communities can share topics, issues and news most important to them in a physical format. Our first issue, coming out this winter, features work from more than 30 individuals and artists.

Very Happy Dougsgiving! A Guide to Making Every Celebration a Bioregional One

Very Happy Dougsgiving! A Guide to Making Every Celebration a Bioregional One

Very happy holiday season fellow Cascadians!

During this time of year, we want to celebrate what our bioregion gives us, the wonderful people living here in a seasonal and sustainable way. Choosing even one of the following steps can be a great way to have a more bioregionally friendly, inclusive meal. For many this is a time of giving, of thanks, and of being near friends and loved ones. We’d like to take a moment and share some easy steps to make any family gathering or meal a bioregional one.

CascadiaNW Solstice in the Park: 2023 Arts in the Parks Grant Application

CascadiaNW Solstice in the Park: 2023 Arts in the Parks Grant Application

The Department of Bioregion is excited to share our application for the City of Seattle 2023 Arts in the Park grant through our program the Cascadia Northwest Arts and Music Festival. Cascadia Northwest Solstice in Seattle will be an all ages event taking place in Beer Sheva Park on Saturday, June 24th. The gathering will celebrate the summer solstice and bring communities together for a day of artmaking, installation art, workshops, music and fun.

Department of Bioregion featured in article "The Cascadia Region – Fun and Facts – Kelowna Capital News"

Department of Bioregion featured in article "The Cascadia Region – Fun and Facts – Kelowna Capital News"

The Department of Bioregion was proud to be featured in a new article The Cascadia Region - Fun and Facts by the Kelowna Capital News on October 13th, 2022 by BW Uzelmann. Read the whole article at: https://canadatoday.news/bc/the-cascadia-region-fun-and-facts-kelowna-capital-news-55464/

Bioregions: an alternative geography more respectful of the Living/ Les biorégions : une géographie alternative plus respectueuse du Vivant by Laurie Debove

Bioregions: an alternative geography more respectful of the Living/ Les biorégions : une géographie alternative plus respectueuse du Vivant by Laurie Debove

The Department of Bioregion was honored to be featured in a new article by Laurie Debove printed on August 10th 2022in the French publication Succession and to be included in the book “Generations”.

The Cascadia DOB is excited to present at this years Bioregional Regeneration Summit: Oct 24-Nov 4th 2022

It is the time for Bioregional Regeneration!

BIOREGIONAL REGENERATION SUMMIT
Oct 24- Nov 4, 2022
English & Español

Radical Collaboration between people and places.
Ways to share resources.
Peer to peer exchange of know-how and knowledge.
Regeneration of ourselves through a deep and authentic connection with Mother Earth.

REGISTER


The Cascadia Department of Bioregion will be excited to present “Why Bioregionalism Matters”. The time and day is still being confirmed, but stay tuned.

Why a Summit

In recent years, many networks, organizations, coalitions, and collaborations have emerged to support regeneration at a bioregional and “landscape” scale. We believe we are at a moment when there is a need for and widespread interest in possibilities for “radical collaboration” so that these diverse initiatives can begin to function as a global ecosystem--one that can navigate the complexity of working across scales, across the private, public, and grassroots domains, and across the many interconnected systems where regenerative work is being imagined and enacted. The Summit offers an open and flexible invitation for participants to explore four connected contexts for this radical collaboration: How global networks can support one another How bioregions can support one another How funding innovation can support bioregional scale regeneration How we can support our emotional, physical and spiritual resilience as individuals grappling with the existential threats of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, economic and social injustice, political fragmentation, and other dimensions of Collapse.

How to join

This scale of working maps itself onto existing places and landscapes in order to provide a meaningful and effective infrastructure for human-scale organising. Bioregions are an age-old organising principle that is being upgraded for the present age by many experiments taking place across the world. Out of that ferment of activity are emerging initiatives for environmental, social and economic regeneration that are place-appropriate.

Registration

The Summit will happen in the Qiqochat platform. After registration you will receive an email with the access.

Register

Agenda

The main agenda is a base to hold multiple conversations and connections. It can change during the event, go here often.

Agenda

Donations

They are seeking an additional $15,000 to fully cover our time and expenses. Consider a donation of $25, $50, and $125.

Donate now

Opportunity explorations

Invite people to engage throughout the Summit on a topic or activity you care about. Frame your exploration with background information, questions and/or activities, and a way to share outcomes. Your invitation will show up on the Summit network map where participants can indicate their interest and self-organize their engagement, with support from the Summit hosts and a team of “weavers.”

Contact the Organizers


About the conveners

The Regenerative Communities Network is a global practitioner collaborative of bioregional networks along with individuals and organizations who share a commitment to place-based initiatives for environmental, social, and economic regeneration. Originally founded by the Capital Institute in 2018, the Network has been independent and managed by its members since the beginning of 2021. After a period of inwardly focused planning and organizing, this Summit represents the beginning of a new phase of outward-facing work in service to the broader movement of which RCN is a part, along with a plan to grow RCN’s membership and surface new possibilities for it to generate value for its network.

Your RCN hosts for this Summit are Melina Angel (Colombia Regenerativa); Isabel Carlisle (Bioregional Learning Centre UK) and Ben Roberts (Connecticut River Valley Bioregional Collaborative).

We are excited to host Bread and Puppet: Apocalypse Defiance Circus for their Seattle Performance, Friday October 21st 2022.

We are excited to host Bread and Puppet: Apocalypse Defiance Circus for their Seattle Performance, Friday October 21st 2022.

Bread and Puppet is coming to Seattle! Friday, October 21st as part of a rare cross-country tour. Doors at 6pm, show starts at 6:30pm. Pay what you can! Tickets are sliding scale $10-35, all proceeds go to Bread and Puppet to cover their travel and venue expenses.

2022 Cascadia NW: Equinox in Pictures

2022 Cascadia NW: Equinox in Pictures

With COVID, this was our first festival since 2019, and brought hundreds of folks out to Sedro-Woolley for a weekend of arts, music and fun. The entire purpose was to reconnect, gather and rekindle energy for hosting a full scale 2023 CascadiaNW festival. This year was also made possible with generous support of Arts WA, the Washington Chamber of Commerce and WA Festival Association.

Seattle Duwamish Indigenous Place Names and Settlements

On this page is a map of the known permanent village sites (c.1800) of the Coast Salish people who lived--and still live--in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. If you are interested in a particular group or area of the Sound click on the appropriate section of the small black and white map to the left. Then, a color map of the area you choose will download. It is only from these larger scale (smaller area) maps that you are able to access information about each of the villages.

CascadiaNW Music and Arts Festival Grant!

CascadiaNW Music and Arts Festival Grant!

After a two year hiatus due to COVID, Cascadia Northwest Arts and Music Festival is excited to return this year with an equinox gathering to reignite the magic and reconnection of the Cascadia community. While it will be much smaller than usual, the goal will be together in person, fundraise and build energy for a full return of the CascadiaNW festival in 2023.

Cascadia Football Team returning in 2023! 

Cascadia Football Team returning in 2023! 

The Department of Bioregion is excited to announce a partnership with the Cascadia Association Football Federation to help CAFF hit the field running in 2023. A ton of great organizing has been going on, and they are looking at a new run of kits, and fielding both a women’s and men’s Cascadia team in 2023 for friendlies and CONIFA matches.