Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- 1 Canada
- Introduction
- 1 The foundations
- 2 The fading Canadian duality
- 3 Official bilingualism: from the 1960s to the 1990s
- 4 Official multiculturalism
- 5 Language in education: bridging educational policy and social psychological research
- 6 Aboriginal languages: history
- 7 Aboriginal languages: current status
- 8 French: Canadian varieties
- 9 French in Quebec
- 10 French in New Brunswick
- 11 French outside New Brunswick and Quebec
- 12 English: Canadian varieties
- 13 English Quebec
- 14 The teaching of international languages
- 15 French immersion in Canada
- 16 Language in Newfoundland
- 17 Language in Prince Edward Island
- 18 Language in Nova Scotia
- 19 Language in New Brunswick
- 20 Language in Quebec: aboriginal and heritage varieties
- 21 Language in Ontario
- 22 Language in Manitoba
- 23 Language in Saskatchewan: Anglo-hegemony maintained
- 24 Language in Alberta: unilingualism in practice
- 25 Language in British Columbia
- 26 Language in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon Territory
- Index of names
- Index of language families, languages, dialects
- Index of subjects
25 - Language in British Columbia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- 1 Canada
- Introduction
- 1 The foundations
- 2 The fading Canadian duality
- 3 Official bilingualism: from the 1960s to the 1990s
- 4 Official multiculturalism
- 5 Language in education: bridging educational policy and social psychological research
- 6 Aboriginal languages: history
- 7 Aboriginal languages: current status
- 8 French: Canadian varieties
- 9 French in Quebec
- 10 French in New Brunswick
- 11 French outside New Brunswick and Quebec
- 12 English: Canadian varieties
- 13 English Quebec
- 14 The teaching of international languages
- 15 French immersion in Canada
- 16 Language in Newfoundland
- 17 Language in Prince Edward Island
- 18 Language in Nova Scotia
- 19 Language in New Brunswick
- 20 Language in Quebec: aboriginal and heritage varieties
- 21 Language in Ontario
- 22 Language in Manitoba
- 23 Language in Saskatchewan: Anglo-hegemony maintained
- 24 Language in Alberta: unilingualism in practice
- 25 Language in British Columbia
- 26 Language in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon Territory
- Index of names
- Index of language families, languages, dialects
- Index of subjects
Summary
The ideal format for a linguistic profile of British Columbia would no doubt have been along the lines of Beltramo's (1981) profile of Montana in the USA. However, due to time and space limitations, the present outline can only touch upon the three major groups in British Columbia (henceforth BC) – First Nations languages, the founding languages and heritage languages.
FIRST NATIONS LANGUAGES
Beringia – the Bering Strait land bridge – allowed Paleo-Siberians, or Paleo-Indians, to migrate across a 1,000-mile stretch of tundra from Asia to North America roughly 50,000 years ago (see Champagne, 1994). It is assumed ‘that stable communities have existed along the northwest Pacific for about 10,000 years – roughly since the civilization of the Egyptians’ (Kramer, 1994, p. 14). At present, there are seven distinct aboriginal language families located in BC: Tsimshian, Athapaskan (part of the Na-Dene phylum), Haida, Salishan, Wakashan, Tlingit and Kutenai (for the northwest coast, see Sturtevant, 1990; for interior BC, see Hawthorn et al., 1960).
Table 25.1 shows the number of speakers of First Nations languages in BC as opposed to the relevant population size (the data are based on Grimes, 1988).
According to the 1981 Census of Canada, 3 per cent of BC's population identified themselves as native people (the Canadian average is 2 per cent).
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- Information
- Language in Canada , pp. 460 - 468Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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