Thank you, Mr. Speaker. About 7,200 Northwest Territories residents speak one of nine Aboriginal languages. Five of the NWT’s official languages have fewer than 500 speakers; six languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers, eight languages have fewer than 1,500 including South Slavey, and only one has more than 2,500 people that speak it, from the 2009 statistics.
[Translation] The government has spent $3.5 million on Aboriginal languages and a lot of the money goes to the Dene Secretariat. The district of education also gets a certain amount of money and also towards the schools. It seems like the Dene language is starting to decline. It seems like we’re also losing our language in my home community of Fort Providence. A lot of young people are finding it hard to speak their Dene language, and also in regard to the media, such as TV. Suppose if we did use the TV media to revive the language. In 1988, the Official Languages Act came into force. In 1988, this is what happened. [Translation ends]
…Aboriginal language are over 40. This age group accounts for about two-thirds of South Slavey speakers. Only 38 percent of Aboriginal people in the NWT speak their language. In the Deh Cho region, 58 percent of Aboriginal people speak their language, the second highest in the Northwest Territories after Tlicho, which is 90 percent. Only about 220 people in the Northwest Territories were able to converse in Gwich’in in 2009.
I will have follow-up questions to the Minister of ECE later on today.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
