It seems that the Skwomesh language is not going to die out as it is being revitalized by the First Nation Youth of Squamish Nation. While the younger generations in other countries are being blamed for failing to learn the languages of their ancestors, thus contributing to the decline of the number of native speakers, it is not the same with the youth of the Squamish Nation in North Vancouver. However informal it might be, these young people are doing their nation a service with their do-it-yourself language immersion.
Language House
In an apartment in North Vancouver, three people in their early 20s are having a conversation. These young people, Khelsilem La Valle, his sister Jaymyn and Joshua Watts are part of a DIY-language immersion experiment to learn and revive their community’s language, Skwomesh, which is already endangered.
The language immersion program was started by Khelsilem, who has a traditional name in his language. He called on the members of his Squamish Nation community and asked if the people were interested in learning their traditional language. He said those who were interested would be living with him rather than attend a regular class. The class would be intensive, as he had structured it in a language immersion setting. He said that this setting is more ideal, contrasting it to taking a language class where the students could get high grades yet unable to conduct actual conversations. With a language immersion program, communication is a priority, as the language should be used for communicating with other people in the program continuously on a daily basis.
Squamish Nation
The territorial boundaries of the Squamish Nation cover the city of Squamish up to North Vancouver, with a population of 4,000. However, the 2014 status report on their language revealed that it is already critically endangered, as there are only seven fluent speakers of Skwomesh remaining in the community.
La Valle came up with the language immersion program because he does not want his language to disappear.
Language learners in the community
Currently about five percent of the members of the Squamish Nation are learning the language. Their Skwomesh language learning options are classes in elementary and high schools in the community as well as evening classes for adults. The adult classes are not given regularly although these are university accredited. These are the reasons why La Valle started to question the effectivity of the classroom setting for language learning. He said that even if the courses in the language had substantial funding for about 20 to 30 years, there is almost no change in the situation.
The Language House did not request funding from the government. Acting like a renegade, La Valle said that he would rather seek funding elsewhere knowing that government funds tend to dry up as the priorities in the government change. The three roommates of the Language House share in the monthly rent of the apartment. They raised money selling T-shirts printed with Skwomesh language online and used the funds to buy furniture, cutlery, dishes and other basic necessities for the house. The beginner language lessons are taught by Khelsilem. They invite community elders to give talks in the language and they hold social gatherings where other language learners join them. Khelsilem La Valle and his team dream of a Skwomesh Language Academy by 2016 through crowd funding.
Image credit: Squamish Pole Raising Ceremony, by Kriskrug under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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