this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
22 points (89.3% liked)
Vancouver
1428 readers
98 users here now
Community for the city of Vancouver, BC
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I’m an idiot an breezed over it.
“tla-hut-um”
Gonna be a hard one to catch on in my honest opinion.
Thank you. I couldn't find it in the article.
I am not opposed to renaming parks, but I don't really like using characters that nobody knows how to pronounce in a name.
I am guessing people will continue to call it colony farms.
Maybe it’ll get bastardized like Squamish or Tsawwassen? ƛ̓éxətəm and it’s anglicized pronunciation are going to be a hard sell for the general population.
For Chinook Wawa, there are several different orthographies. One of the more useful ones in my opinion is the BC Learner's orthography precisely because it simultaneously uses the regular Latin alphabet, no ambiguous accent marks or novel letters, and also includes enough information that a fluent speaker can differentiate everything needed.
I think reviving indigenous languages is important, but there are also 34 different indigenous languages in BC, in 7 different language families. Part of revitalizing languages is making them accessable.
Returning to my Chinook example, although I personally think Chinuk Pipa is the most "legitimate" orthography due to historic use, and the Grande Ronde orthography is probably the "best" in that it is most accurate, I would have to concede that the BC Learner's is the most useful, because it makes the language accessible, and invites people to learn more. And it's good enough.
A poor Anglicized transliteration at least can get the new name being used.
Sorry about the rant, this is just a topic I have strong feelings about. I fully accept that my opinions are not authoritative. It's a complex topic, but this renaming does highlight one of the hurdles of language revitalization, and many of those 34 languages are critically endangered. Whenever a language is lost, a whole way of describing the world is lost, and another thread connecting is too our past is cut.
Dude never apologize for an educated informative rant like that. I wasn’t familiar with the different orthographies before, now I’ve learned something new so thank you. And I absolutely agree with the points you made even more so now that I know a little more.
I just know it can be controversial, and the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm/Kwikwetlem even open with "kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem)" on their pronunciation guide. I personally think it's great that Colony Park is now ƛ̓éxətəm, I just wish it was generally preferred to display it as ƛ̓éxətəm (tla-hut-um).
This isn't a problem specific to indigenous languages. I like J.J. McCullough's take on the difficulty of names. The reality is, that pretty much everyone in Canada is going to be familiar with the basic Latin alphabet. There might be some disagreement between unilingual French and English speakers, but it's a pretty much universal orthography for Canada.
Who is the leader of Russia, China, or even Ukraine? I'm not going to be able to read Владимир Путин,习近平, or Володимир Зеленський.
There are several different ways to deal with this, and none are perfect, and all have their strengths. But ultimately, if I am renaming a park in Port Coquitlam, I'm going to need to render the name in some usable form of people are going to use it.
Where I have to cool my jets though, is in not Kwikwetlem, I'm not learning Kwikwetlem, and it's not my call.
The problem is that PNW indigenous languages use sounds that do not exist in English, French, or Latin, or even Phoenician (for OG alphabet nerds). The "ƛ̓" isn't really tl, it's related to the "barred L". Again, I have approximately zero fluency in Kwikwetlem, but I believe it is the same sound as in CW tloos (good/right/proper) or tlap (find). However, even if you mispronounced those words, I'm happy if you actually read them and maybe even learned them.
Sorry for the second long rant, and I don't even know if the original commenter was curious or annoyed, but it is a perfectly valid question. I can (badly) read letters written over a hundred years ago by people in their own words, but I can't read a park name. I just really wish more effort was put into making indigenous languages more accessible. Part of the benefit of renaming these places is the opportunity to introduce people to local languages.
Even if everyone on this thread is thoroughly up to date on Kwikwetlem preferred orthography, there will be someone walking by that park tomorrow, next month, next year. Maybe they've just moved to the neighborhood. This might be their first introduction to the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language. How am I going to type that into Google maps?
Sometimes the aim is to make the language exclusive, to raise a barrier to entry. To make the interloper uncomfortable. Which I get, but I suppose I'm just more worried about the survival of these languages. 34, in one province! Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure BC accounts for over 50% of indigenous languages in Canada (it's all those mountains).
Sorry for rant part 2.
Just want to say I enjoyed reading this and hope you'll share more knowledge on the Fediverse
Thanks! I realize it's the "inside baseball" version. Language revitalization is a big topic, and BC is a global hotspot, and a minor feel-good story touches upon a whole lot of it.
I really appreciate all the knowledge you shared. I was wondering if I could ask if there were any learning resources you would recommend to learn more about this subject. For example, you seen quite fluid in typing out the correct written spelling for these languages. How are you doing that fluidly on keyboard/phone? (E.g. have you programmed shortcuts or are you copy and pasting each time?)
Considering almost everything gets bastardized, that seems ok to me? Listening to anglicized pronunciation of Chinese cities makes me cry.