Gitksan language

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Gitksan is a First Nations language of northwestern British Columbia. It is a Tsimshianic language, closely related to the neighboring Nisga'a language. Indeed, linguists have often treated Gitksan and Nisga'a as dialects of a single Nass-Gitksan language. The two groups are, however, politically separate and prefer to refer to Gitksan and Nisga'a as distinct languages. Gitksan is an endangered language, currently estimated to have no more than 1,000 speakers, of whom the great majority are elders. Few if any children grow up speaking Gitksan at home. The few young speakers are former students of the now closed Gitksan immersion school.

Synonymy

The name the Gitxsan people use for their language has slightly different forms in different dialects. One therefore sees Gitxsan, the form used in the Hazelton area, Gitxsan, the form used in the Eastern dialects, and Gitxsan, the form used in the Western dialects. In Gitksan the language itself is called Gitksanimaax̣, Gitxsanimx̣, or Gitxsenimx̣ according to dialect. Other variants found are Gityskyan and Giklsan.

Bibliography

Halpin, Marjorie and Margaret Seguin (1990) Tsimshian Peoples: Southern Tsimshian, Coast Tsimshian, Nishga, and Gitksan, in Wayne Sutles (ed) Handbook of North American Indians: Volume 7. Northwest Coast. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution) pp 267-284.
Hindle, Lonnie and Bruce Rigsby (1973) A short practical dictionary of the Gitksan language, Northwest Anthropological Research Notes 1:1-60.
Rigsby, Bruce (1986) Gitksan Grammar. Unpublished manuscript, University of Queensland, Australia.

External Links

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