“I didn’t realize they wrote the program in ʔayʔaǰuθəm,” Fay Blaney, Homalco Health Centre Wellness Coordinator said, looking up at the poster on the wall of the Homalco main hall last week.
The program, written entirely in the First Nation’s language, lay out the agenda for the day. It was the second annual Celebrate ʔayʔaǰuθəm (Ayajuthem) Language Day at the Homalco Village, and was an opportunity for the community and representatives of other ʔayʔaǰuθəm-speaking Nations to gather, share stories and celebrate successes in the project of revitalizing the Northern Coast Salish language.
ʔayʔaǰuθəm is spoken by χʷɛmaɬkʷu (Homalco), ɬəʔamɛn (Tla’amin), k̓’ómoks (K’omoks) and ƛoʔos (Klahoose) First Nations. Representatives from each were present to talk about their successes and progress over the past year, and show what work will be done in coming months to help revitatlize the language.
“There’s so much going on in the language program,” said Blaney “We’re just so excited to be able to celebrate those acheivements.”
Blaney translated the program on the wall, saying that the day would be made up of “fun games, activities, stories,” adding that the representatives from sister Nations would be speaking about their progress, as well as an overview of the Homalco Graphic Novel announced earlier this year, and finished the day with a community dinner.
Tchadas Leo, a Homalco journalist who has helmed the graphic novel project, said the novel was to belong to Homalco. The goal is to have an initial print run of the book in the next few weeks for proofreading, and it will be published fully after that. The book Leo said that though the book is untitled at this point, “graphic novels are based on heroes.
“For our Elders to pass on their knowledge … it’s heroic,” he said. “I want it to have a heroic title.”
Over the past year, the Nation has been working to establish an ʔayʔaǰuθəm curriculum for classes in SD72 and North Island College classes. Blaney said that next fall, she hopes that those classes are ready to be offered in local schools.
On top of that, work on teaching and immersing community members in the language is ongoing.
“We had a Silent Speakers program that ran for 12 weeks,” she said. “
According to the First Peoples’ Cultural Council, a Silent Speaker “is someone who has a good understanding of a language but does not speak it.”
That can be for a number of reasons, but the goal of the program is to support silent speakers to overcome barriers and let them use their Indigenous language in the community.
“They met every week,” Blaney said about the Homalco program. “It was more of a therapy session because we’ve been so traumatized when it comes to our language, you know, with what happened to us in the residential school. So they have this associated with the language, and it’s been a big hit.”
During a break in the program, language videographer Dominic Fode stepped up to play a game with the crowd. He led them through an educational game where people were prompted to point at others in the crowd following a funny and good-natured prompt, all in ʔayʔaǰuθəm. All around the room, people laughed, smiled and pointed at their loved ones.