Qualicum First Nation celebrates pentl’ach language reawakening

Qualicum First Nations language team held a celebration event on November 17th hosted by the First Peoples’ Cultural Council. Pictured left to right: Chief Michael Recalma, Mathew Andreatta, Lisa Recalma, Bill Recalma, Sarah Quinn, Tracie Finstad, Su Urbanczyk & Jessie Recalma. Photo: First Peoples’ Cultural Council

Exciting news has come out of the Qualicum First Nations as the once-considered '“sleeping language” has successfully been labelled as an awakening language. The pentl’ach (pronounced punt-lutch) language has officially become the 35th First Nations language recognized in British Columbia. 

pentl’ach became labelled as a sleeping language when the last known fluent speaker passed away in the 1940’s. Revitalizing the language has been a long-time effort, but in 2017 under the leadership of Chief Michael Recalma, they formed a language reclamation team and began working on bringing back the language to a living status. The language was traditionally spoken in what is now Cape Lazo to Parksville and a little bit west of the areas.

X̂ix̂a Niyus Mathew Andreatta was attending the University of British Columbia’s First Nations and Endangered Languages program around 2016 when he started a project about pentl’ach where he uncovered a lot of unknown documents that he felt he should bring back home.

Andreatta then joined the language reclamation team working with all the information about the language they had. 

 “There's the intricacies and challenges and difficulties of the linguistic side which for us our community is in a pretty specific situation, given that we only have written documentation to go off of in our reconstruction process,” Andreatta said. “So figuring out how things were pronounced and how the words sounded is a big undertaking for our team.” 

He said this is more than just a language project but also a healing project for the community to figure out how they will all want to relate to the language again and how to heal the wounds from the absence of it.

The Qualicum First Nations partnered with the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, the First Peoples’ Cultural Council, linguists from the University of Victoria, and neighbouring and related nations. 

Aliana Parker is the Language Program Director at the First People's Cultural Council where they have the mandate to support the revitalisation of First Nations languages, arts, and cultural heritage throughout BC. First People’s Cultural Council started supporting and funding the project around 2020.

Parker explains that there are very few First Nations languages labelled as sleeping as currently many languages are being revitalized to increase the use of the languages. She also said they stay away from using the term extinct as it can give the wrong idea. 

“We use the term sleeping rather than an extinct for this very reason because it is absolutely possible for a language that hasn't been spoken in a long time to really come back to life and to begin used again by community members and people who are passionate,” Parker said.

Parker said that work like this can take a very long time and could be discouraging for some to take on and believe it could not be completed.

“There are perceptions from outsiders that maybe say it isn't possible to bring the language back, but it very much is possible and I believe that Qualicum First Nation is demonstrating that is living proof of that,” Parker said.

From this project, Andreatta hopes to see more of a presence of the language on the land and be alive and vibrant in their community. As well as lay the groundwork for the next generation to pick up the language and carry it with them.

“So I think what I would like to see is an opportunity to be made possible for the next generations and for ours, too, because it is an intergenerational project.” He said. “A lot of our elders and our older community members, and family members weren't able to have a relationship with this language growing up so watching them be able to reconnect with it, too, I think is a really important step.”

When asked what he says is important about this project, he said the answer will be different for everyone as it’s healing work so everyone’s goals and approaches will be different. But for him, he hopes to see strength in the connections to identities. 

“It’s restrengthening that sense of identity and it is reaffirming things we've always known. It’s reaffirming our continued presence here and it also maintains our responsibilities to our ancestors who left the language for us, who left the lands that we live on now, who left those things to us in good ways and ways that we can pick up and keep carrying forward,” He said. “So it's up to us to do that and I think that's a big part of why it's important to know being able to find ourselves.”

He also believes the reclamation of indigenous languages within communities is a big part of Thurth and Reconciliation. This process, he said, is important for non-indigenous people to understand or try to understand that it is a healing process, a strengthening process, and an unlearning process all at once.

“Because our truth lies in a lot in these wounds of not having access to our language, and the resilience of our community and our team members to work to undo that has been really inspiring to see and if there's anything to take away from the project and some of the recent announcement is just that,” Andreatta said. 

Andreatta said the next steps will be to continue learning the language and planning ways to make it more accessible for the community to strengthen their relationship with it.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.