Haida Language

What happens when a people lose their language? To a significant degree they lose part of what makes them a distinct people. One of the essential features of the residential schools that native people were forced into was just this: to “kill the Indian” by stopping them from speaking their language. So language loss been a real issue for the Haida First Nation, as it has with many other indigenous people in British Columbia. There are over 200 First Nations along the northwest coast many speaking or with distinctive languages. 

To deal with this the Haida founded the Skidegate Language Immersion Program (SLIP) in 1998. By then there were probably no more than 20 elders still able to speak the Haida language or more specifically in this case the dialect of Haida spoken by Skidegate Haida. Another dialect is spoken by Old Massett Haida, also on Haida Gwaii, and still another by the Haida community in Alaska.

SLIP has been a real success story. It was amazing to us, for example, that the 18-year old Haida woman who was our very articulate and knowledgeable guide to understanding the monumental poles at the Haida Heritage Center in Skidegate, also spoke fluently in the Haida language. That would not have been possible without the disciplined work of  elders who began getting together to remember and record their oral language after 1998. Since then more than 200 CDs, a printed language glossary with more than 26,000 Haida words, over 100 lesson plans and children’s books for passing on the language to others, a feature-length film in the Haida language and even a app have been produced.

This work was recently publicly recognized when nine of the Haida elders received Honorary Doctor of Law Degrees from Vancouver Island University: “These nine Haida Elder wisdom keepers [avg. age 84] are completing the Great Work of their lives. They have brought forth a body of work from the core of their being that captures the richness of language and culture and showcased it to the world. The Great Work is resurgent, regenerative, transformative and is a gift for all future generations.” 

Haida Language Glossary

Skidegate Language Immersion Program

Skidegate Elders

Haida Docent at Haida Heritage Center in Skidegate