Derek Neary
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 05/99) - Every weekday morning, Beatrice Antoine is teaching children at Melaw Childcare Centre how to speak the Slavey language.

She gathers them round and rehearses numbers one through 10 with them. Then she reviews common commands and questions, such as "theneda" or "sit down," and "Danet'i," or "What are you doing?"

Afterwards, the children are guided through a culturally-relevant activity or craft session. Last week, the theme was "on the land" and Friday's project was to glue feathers on a bird made from construction paper. Several of the children asked to take the birds home to hang from their ceilings. Sewing beaver hide, a drumming demonstration, dancing, talking about setting snares and the importance of fire and water are also on Antoine's agenda.

The day's lessons are supplemented by drumming music which plays on cassette in the background. Antoine, the interim program instructor, said she has received many resource materials from Andy Norwegian, who recently chaired a conference on the status of the Slavey language.

Working primarily with children ages three to five, she admitted that grasping language skills can be difficult for children who are speaking it for the first time. However, she has seen progress since beginning three weeks ago.

"Some of them are counting to 10 really good. It's really impressive," she said.

The day care recently received funding from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment for the "dene keh kotse deh" program ("speaking Dene"), according to manager Sharon Brown. There are also plans to have some elders come in to share their wisdom, and to have some murals painted on the walls with the Dene words written across various objects.

"The kids hear the language a lot more than they would otherwise and the more exposure, the easier it is," Brown said. "Of course, the rest of the staff is learning a little bit too as we go along."

Antoine, who was born and raised in Wrigley, said she has to be mindful of the differences between the dialect of her home community and that of Fort Simpson. In Wrigley, "p" sounds are commonplace while in Simpson there tends to be a greater emphasis on "th" sounds. For example, in Wrigley an axe is "go pih," but in Simpson it's "Tthi," she said.

Neither of her parents speak English so she must speak the Dene language when she visits them. Likewise, she tries to use Slavey in her own home to introduce it to her children Gerald, Jonathon and Mary-Ann.

"I've always wanted to teach and keep the language going... for me it's a concern," she said, adding that few, if any, teenagers in Fort Simpson are using the language today. "It's a challenge."