New dictionary published for Indigenous Vancouver Island language

A brand new dictionary was published this past week after decades of work to preserve and translate an Indigenous language.

It contains more than12,000 words in SENOEN, the language of the WSNE First Nations on Vancouver Island's Saanich Peninsula.

SENOENis one of theCoast Salish group of languages that is written in a mainly upper-case alphabet.

Now the dictionary will be used as a tool for people working to learn the language.

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LouisClaxton, of the TsawoutFirst Nation, worked with a linguist and other elders from the Tsartlip, Tsawout, Tseycum, and Pauquachin communities to complete the project.

Claxtonsaid people like his mother initially began language preservation and translations to English and he is proud to have helped complete their work.

"There was so much work put in there by a lot of our people that aren't here today. They're the ones that get the credit for doing this."

Claxton's sister Belinda made hours of recordings of people speaking SENOEN and says helping others learn the language is vital for their culture.

"That's our whole philosophy, that's how we conduct ourselves, that's how we get our teachings and our culture."

She says she is starting to hear kids speaking SENOEN to each other.

"It was nice to hear because I only heard it from my mum and the older generation. It was just like listening to music."

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John Elliott's late father, Dave Elliott, spent years writing down SENOEN words and eventually developed an alphabet specifically for the language.

"He was born in 1910 and he saw the loss of culture and language and it bothered him."

Elliott spent the last few years teaching children enrolled in a SENOEN immersion elementary school program and is glad to see new resources developed for the language.

"I'm really happy to see that the dictionary has been put together.

Work on a SENOEN grammar book is now underway.

Linguist Timothy Montler worked for 40 years with the Claxtons and their mother on the project.

Montlerhas also published a dictionary and grammar guide for the Klallam language, which is spoken on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.