This paper discusses the state languages in the geopolitical North (in Greenland, Northern Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Saami) at the time of writing. Regarding North Slavey, which the author comments encompasses Hare, Bearlake, and Mountian, the paper provides a population estimate of 1,600 and approximates that 900 of those speak the language, including some children. The end of the paper provides these figures summarized in a table with all other designated Northern languages.

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Read the access notes for Northern Minority Languages from the Unesco Library. 

Krauss, Michael. “The Indigenous Languages of the North: A Report on Their Present State.” Northern Minority Languages: Problems of Survival. Senri Ethnological Studies 44 (1997): 1-34.

This section of the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples discusses education of Indigenous peoples in Canada. The chapter includes history, the status of reserves and remote communities, and the move towards culturally relevant curriculum. It provides regional overviews and discusses education in the Northwest Territories, including Dene Kede Curriculum.

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Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. “Volume 3: Gathering Strength, Chapter 5: Education” in Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996): 404-538.

The item is derived from the version archived in the Government of Canada Archives. Quoted from the associated rights section: "Non-commercial Reproduction Information on this site has been posted with the intent that it be readily available for personal and public non-commercial use and may be reproduced, in part or in whole and by any means, without charge or further permission from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. We ask only that: Users exercise due diligence in ensuring the accuracy of the materials reproduced; Indian and Northern Affairs Canada be identified as the source department; and, The reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor as having been made, in affiliation with or with the endorsement of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada."

This report covers the staff, budget, expenditures, and accomplishments of the Language Commissioner’s office, as well as an overview of complaints and inquiries relating to the OLA. It notes that a new measure was passed in November of 1994 to appoint the next Languages Commissioner on contract, for four-year terms. Harnum’s term would expire in 1995-1996, with a new Commissioner in place from 1996-2000. In addition, the Legislature’s Standing Committee on Agencies, Boards and Commissions took responsibility for reviewing reports and activities from the Office of the Languages Commissioner.

Harnum concludes this report with a comment that the GNWT had yet to develop clear guidelines for implementing the OLA, even though, at the time of writing, it had been 10 years since the Act’s passing. However, in this year the office of the Languages Commissioner was clarified somewhat, and cooperation between Harnum and the GNWT lead to more publically accessible information about the OLA in the form of a booklet explaining the OLA in all official languages.

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This document can be accessed in the NWT archives with the correct permissions. See item description here. 

NWT Archives, Northwest Territories. Legislative Assembly fonds/G-1998-005: 1-4

Office of the Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories [Betty Harnum]. 1984-1994: 10 years of Official Languages in the NWT. 3^rd Annual Report for the period April 1, 1994, to March 31, 1995. Yellowknife, 1995.

Project Coordinator: Helena Laraque. Cover Illustration: John Williamson.

The authors describe the process and constraints involved in gathering and verifying Dene Kedǝ terminology related to renewable resources. The rest of the document includes lists of terms that have been translated, will be translated, and participants.

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A physical copy of this resources is held at the University of Aberta Library in the Circumpolar Collection (Cameron), call number PM 2365 M37 1994. Last accessed July 2017.

Masuzumi, Barney, Dora Grandjambe, and Petr Cizek [Dene Cultural Institute]. North Slavey Terminology and Concepts Related to Renewable Resources: An Interim Report, Tı̨ch’ádı Hek’éyedıts’ǝ́dı gha Xǝdǝ Hé Goghǫ Dáts’enıwę Ghǫ Ɂedátl’e. Government of the Northwest Territories Department of Renewable Resources: Yellowknife, 1994.

This report reviews completed and outstanding recommendations from the previous year, including the initiative to disseminate information about the Act and the role of the Languages Commissioner to the public. The documents for this purpose were produced in the early-mid 90s and were in all Official Languages; they included bookmarks, brochures, and a summary of rights bestowed by the OLA.

In the reporting period, the office of the languages commissioner dealt with “377 complaints and inquiries, 80% of which are completed” (5) re OLA guidelines and their effective implementation. The Languages Commissioner’s office had to determine what was a valid complaint. E.g., the OLA says service must be provided in an OL when there Is “significant demand,” but metrics for such are not specified. After breaking down some statistics on language use in the territories, as well as OLA complaints and inquiries, Harnum notes that the Federal government funding for OLA implementation was cut by 10% in 1993-4, with further cuts promised.

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This document has been archived by the NWT Department of Education, Culture, and Employment. 

Office of the Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories [Betty Harnum]. “Together, we can do it!” 2^nd Annual Report for the period April 1, 1993, to March 21, 1994. Yellowknife, 1994.

This extensive report covers a large amount of important material. In its preface, Harnum comments on the creation of the office of the Languages Commissioner as a linguistic ombudsperson during the 1990 amendments to the 1984 Official Languages Act. These same amendments gave equal official status to all of the eight named languages, including Indigenous languages.

Harnum identifies linguistic subgroups within each official language (in North Slavey, she comments that “native speakers can identify as many as six or seven sub-groups.” (14)). In addition, at the time of writing Statistics Canada only differentiated between 'Hare’ (Colville Lake region) and 'Slavey,’ but did not report on other dialects or the differences between North and South Slavey. This being said, Harnum pulls from Statistics Canada figures to discuss language shift and its acceleration in Dene languages. The question on “ability to converse” was only added to the census in 1991; this question allowed researchers to track self-reported second language learning.

With regard to literacy, Harnum simply comments on the dearth of good research. She comments that the NWT Literacy Council has been one of the few to do a study of this kind, but it works with a small sample only. Despite this dearth, Statistics Canada has some useful 1991 data that shows that of all Aboriginal people who could read/write in an Indigenous language in the NWT, 5.7% of them could read Slavey, and 3.8% could write Slavey. This data does not capture whether or not people are referring to syllabics or roman orthography.

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This document is archived in the NWT Department of Education, Culture, and Employment. 

Office of the Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories [Betty Harnum]. First Annual Report of the Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories for the Year 1992-1993. Yellowknife NT, 1993.

This article provides a historical overview of interpreter/translator (I/T) training in the Northwest Territories, focusing on Arctic College programs at Thebacha Campus (Fort Smith) as compared with Nunatta Campus (Iqaluit). The Northwest Territories Department of Information formed the Interpreter Corps in 1979, and launched I/T training at the same time. The same department became Culture and Communications a few years later, and the program was renamed “the Language Bureau,” which in 1993 provided on the job training for Dene or Inuktitut-English employees.

In 1987, a one-year I/T certificate program was developed at Arctic College by Marilyn Phillips and the Language Bureau. By 1993, a second year diploma was in place. At the time of this paper’s writing, it was offered in two locations: Thebacha (for Dene students) and Nunatta (for Inuit Students). To qualify for the program, students had to be orally fluent in Dene and have completed Grade 10. They often learn to write in their language in the program, “since a standardized system of writing Anthapaskan languages [had] only recently been accepted” (96). The languages taught were “Gwich’in, North Slavey, South Slavey, Dogrib, and Chipewyan,” (96) and the Dene classes were “Professional Development, Northern Studies, Keyboarding, Communications, Speech and Performance, Listening Labs, English Writing Lab, Dene literacy, Linguistics… Translation Methods, Interpreting Methods, Simultaneous and Consecutive Interpreting, and two Practica” (97).

One major challenge this program encountered was evaluation. No Dene native speaker had completed a degree in interpreting or translating or written a “CTIC” exam. Most elders were unilingual, and thus unable to evaluate simultaneous interpretation (as judged by the program). A second challenge was enrolment, which was endemically low, in part because potential students could not find housing for their families near each campus. Finally, I/T services were in such high demand that translators often did not need formal training to acquire a job.

Abstract: 

This report briefly outlines the historical developments of interpreter I translator training in the Northwest Territories. It describes the origins of the present Arctic College I IT programs at the Thebacha Campus in Fort Smith and Nunatta Campus in Iqaluit and describes their similarities and differences. It outlines admission requirements and course offerings and discusses some of the challenges faced in training aboriginal translators and interpreters.

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The full text of this article can be downloaded from erudit. 

Semsch, Marlene. “A Report on the Arctic College Interpreter-Translators Program.”  Meta 38, no. 1 (1993): 96-91.

The primary focus of this text is the history of writing systems for Dene languages. Following syllabics, Roman orthography alphabets were created in the 1950s and 1960s. In the early-mid 1970s, the Government of the Northwest Territories began running Teacher Education Program literacy workshops, and as students became skilled in literacy they were hired as language specialists to conduct further literacy workshops and courses. A paucity of reading materials in Aboriginal languages, in addition to numerous other challenges, made it very difficult to teach these classes.

Abstract: 

The Dene (Indian) languages of the MacKenzie Valley of the Northwest Territories are Chipewan, Dogrib, Gwich'in and Slavey. These people did not traditionally write their languages, but in recent years linguists have produced alphabets that accurately represent the sounds of these languages. Since the 1970's the Government of the Northwest Territories, via the Department of Education and the Teacher Education Program has been sponsoring workshops and courses designed to enable many Dene to read and write in their languages, and to become language specialists qualified to teach literacy to others. These courses are not structured for totally non-literate people, but for students orally fluent in their native tongue, who are already literate in English, having already been through the English-medium primary and secondary school systems. The courses employ techniques which engender skills in syllable and sound discrimination. When a student has mastered these skills he I she is able to read and write accurately in the native language and needs only time and practice to develop fluency in literacy. There are currently a number of Dene who have achieved such fluency.

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The full text of this article can be downloaded from Erudit. 

Howard, Philip G. “Language Initiatives.” Meta 38, no. 1 (1993): 92-95.

This set of RCAP hearing minutes contains numerous testimonials, including a piece by Betty Harnum that speaks to the history of language and legislation in the NWT. In her testimony, she advocates for increased interpretive services, more accessible language funding, more elders in schools, Aboriginal language immersion classes, and language teacher certification. She also speaks to the difficulty that interpreter/translators face with regard to negotiations and unfamiliar terminology (e.g., “extinguishment”) and how more training is needed. Thus far, Harnum comments, it has been very difficult to measure or quantify how much of an impact the Official Languages Act and its connected funding has had.

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Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Hearing Record: Tuesday December 8, 1992. Northern United Place Hall, Yellowknife. Recorded by Stenotran, Ottawa (1992).

This text documents the results of a traditional environmental knowledge workshop held in a camp on the Mackenzie River near Fort Good Hope. The community of Fort Good Hope helped to coordinate the camp, and the event pertained to the Dene Cultural Institute traditional environmental knowledge project conducted in this region from 1989-1991.

From Foreword: 

In recent years, the value of the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples, and particularly their traditional environmental knowledge, has been recognized. This has unleashed a flood of research. Some of the research has been undertaken by scientists working alone, but the most innovative responses to this trend have been developed by indigenous researchers working in collaboration with Western scientists. They recognized early on that the main objective was not simply to collect reels of audio or video tape as a form of folklore, but to catalogue this information so that it could be compared from one region and one culture to other regions and other cultures, and, even more, so that it could be brought to bear on policies for sustainable development in remote and typically fragile ecosystems. This book presents the results of a workshop on the documentation and application of traditional environmental knowledge through community-based research. Organized and hosted by the Dene Cultural Institute (DCI) based in Fort Hay, Northwest Territories, Canada, and supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (lDRC), the workshop brought together a small number of teams, each composed of indigenous and nonindigenous researchers from Northern Canada, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, and South America. Their primary goal was to discuss effective methods for documenting the unique environmental knowledge and understanding that characterizes the heritage of all indigenous peoples around the world.

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Read the full PDF from IRDC Canada: https://www.idrc.ca/en/book/lore-capturing-traditional-environmental-knowledge

Johnson, Martha (ed.).LORE: Capturing Traditional Environmental Knowledge. Hay River, Dene Cultural Institute, International Development Research Centre, 1992.