Derek Neary
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 24/00) - Interviews to determine the level of fluency are the first step in an effort to preserve the Slavey language.

"We just want to get the latest snapshot of where our language is at in the region," said Joachim Bonnetrouge, language co-ordinator for the Deh Cho First Nations.

More than a dozen interviewers in 10 Deh Cho communities are expected to complete 1,100 interviews on the status of the language by the end of March. Among the 12 questions are ones focusing on how residents would like the language to be passed on -- through bush camps, CD-Roms or lessons in the community, for example.

The interviews are currently being done with people aged 18 and up. In the future, students may be surveyed through the schools, Bonnetrouge added.

Following the community workshops and household interviews, members of a regional working group -- Roy Fabien, Gladys Norwegian, Gerald Antoine, Arthur Martel and Joachim Bonnetrouge -- will gather with the interviewers and other residents to analyze the information. The results will be reported back to the communities and form the basis of a Dene Language Strategic Plan.

Some communities may request assistance with training, while others may want to concentrate on issues that extend beyond language, but are related. For example, traditional family roles, healing, craft production, legends, ceremonies, tanning hides, making dry meat or gathering herbs could be part of the language lessons, he suggested.

"It would be very rare if two communities were identical," he said. "Their priorities may be entirely different."

The only previous initiative that compares to this one was a Canadian census taken in 1996, which included a language survey, but Bonnetrouge said he doesn't believe it was as comprehensive as this endeavour.

"We will have documented each community ... and we will begin to put together resource material or resource persons to assist the communities in whichever area," he said.

The action plan was devised because the Slavey language is ebbing. Bonnetrouge noted that it has been predicted that Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibwa will be the only aboriginal languages to endure in the North.

"We have to make the Deh Cho Dene Zhatie (language) the fourth one to survive," he said. "I feel very good about it."