Southern Carrier, Lower Carrier or locally known as Dakelh is an endangered

dialect group The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...

of the

Athabaskan Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific ...

Carrier language The Dakelh (ᑕᗸᒡ) or Carrier language is a Northern Athabaskan language. It is named after the Dakelh people, a First Nations people of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, for whom Carrier has been a common English name deri ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

, Canada. The dialects belonging to Southern Carrier roughly correspond to those to the south of Fort St. James. The group is divided into two subgroups, Fraser/Nechakoh and Blackwater which are further subdivided into individual dialects. The Fraser/Nechakoh subdivision of Southern Carrier includes the Lheidli,

Saik'uz Saik'uz (translated as "on the sand"), or Stoney Creek, is a Dakelh nation whose main community is on a reserve southwest of Vanderhoof, British Columbia along Kenney Dam Road. Saik'uz is a member of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council. Ameniti ...

, Nadleh, Nautey, Stelakoh, Stoney Creek, Prince George and Cheslatta dialects. The Blackwater division includes the

Anahim Lake :''The subject of this article should not be confused with Anaham, which is a different community located nine kilometres east of Alexis Creek, British Columbia, which is in the same area.'' Anahim Lake is a small community in British Columbia. ...

, Red Bluff,

Nazko Nazko is a small ranching and logging community, including a historic First Nations community located 100 km west of Quesnel on the Nazko River in the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Nazko means, "river flowing from the south". ...

, Kluskus, and Ulkatcho dialects. Southern Carrier has an extremely extensive and productive system of noun classifications. It has multiple classification subsystems and they can take place in the same sentence or same verb.

Fluent Speakers

Indigenous_Peoples_Day_by_Bob_Steventon-5097_(48594509531)_cropped

According to a 2016 census conducted by the

Government of Canada The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-i ...

, there were 1,270 fluent speakers of the Carrier language. Among the 1,270 speakers, 1,045 have the language as a single mother tongue and 225 have the language as one of their mother tongues.

FirstVoices Language Learning

FirstVoices Website

FirstVoices FirstVoices is a web-based project to support Indigenous peoples' teaching and archiving of language and culture. It is administered by the First Peoples' Cultural Council in British Columbia (B.C.). FirstVoices was initially launched in 2003 to ai ...

is an online

indigenous languages An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not neces ...

archiving and learning resource administered by the

First Peoples' Cultural Council The First Peoples’ Cultural Council (FPCC) is a First Nations governed Crown Corporation of the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is based in Brentwood Bay, British Columbia on Tsartlip First Nation. The organization was formerly known as ...

of British Columbia, Canada. Dakelh/Southern Carrier language is one of the languages documented on the website. Information on alphabets, words, phrases, songs, and stories are available. Both orthography and voice recordings are provided on the website. Games and a kids portal are also available for pre-readers to engage with the language.

FirstVoices App

The Nazko-Dakelh mobile application has a bilingual dictionary and a collection of Dakelh/Southern Carrier language phrases that are archived on the FirstVoices website. It is available for free on bot
Apple
an
Android
mobile operating systems.

References

External links

Southern Carrier / Dakelh Language on FirstVoices

Lheidli dictionary

First Nations languages in Canada Endangered Dené–Yeniseian languages Dakelh Northern Athabaskan languages {{IndigenousAmerican-lang-stub