Indigenous languages lost, found and shared

All summer long Unreserved will shareour favourite interviews from our community, culture and conversations.

This week:Languages lost, found, and shared.

Skwomesh

You may be familiar with the termSquamish.It's the name of a community in British Columbia and is often used to refer to a nation of people.One of those people isKhelsilem. He is one of two lead instructors of the adult immersion Swxw7mesh language program at Simon Fraser University.

The program has 15 students learning the Skwomesh language seven hours a day, five days a week. Back in 2014, a report on the status of B.C. First Nations languages called that language, critically endangered, with only seven fluent

speakers remaining.

Gwich'in

For many, social media is a place to share funny photos or watch cat videos.But for some language revivers,appsand sites likeYoutube,Facebook, Twitter andInstagramare becoming tools to to foster and share Indigenous languages.
Jacey Firth-Haden is ayoung Yukon woman behind a social media campaign called "Speak Gwich'in To Me." Shestarted the online community to get herpeople speaking theGwich'inlanguage.

Cree

Saskatoon teacherBelindaDanielshas been a teacher for over a decade.Her dedication earned her a nomination for the Global Teacher Prize in 2016. It's a one million dollar prize awarded to a teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession.

Belindateaches introductory Cree, history and Indigenous studies to high school students in Saskatoon.
But she wasn't always a Cree speaker.Belindadidn't begin to learn her language until she was in university.