SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - As aboriginal groups across the territory see their cultures slipping away and political leaders push for new laws to protect them, one region remains well above the rest when it comes to keeping its language strong.

Rosemary Kirby, an Inuvialuktun language consultant at Aurora College, works on a lesson plan as part of the College's second language program. The program aims to preserve aboriginal language. - Katie May/NNSL photo

In the Tlicho region, 94 per cent of people 15 and older speak an aboriginal language compared with an NWT average of 44 per cent, according to the most recent data available through the NWT Bureau of Statistics.

Though aboriginal language speakers have continued to decline across the territory, Tlicho people have managed to maintain their language within their homes and workplaces - a victory that is not lost on the region's teachers.

Rosa Mantla, language co-ordinator at the Teaching and Learning Centre in Behchoko, said instructors have long been encouraging people to speak their language not only in school, but in their homes and offices as well as in public places.

"Our language is still strong and we're trying to maintain it as much as we can in the Tlicho region, especially with the young parents," Mantla said, adding that communities in the region - Behchoko, Gameti, Weekweeti and Whati - are fortunate to have many teachers and elders capable of passing on the language and the culture that comes with it.

"Many of our elders are still around with us," Mantla said, "and over the years many documentation has ... been recorded so I know there's a lot to be done but we're still training our own people to be interpreters, to be able to transcribe."

A focus on training new teachers is one of the reasons the Tlicho region has been successful in keeping its language alive, Mantla believes.

Just last month, for example, a group of young women graduated from their teaching program at Aurora College and some of them have already been trained specifically to teach the Tlicho language in schools.

In 1972, when Chief Jimmy Bruneau opened his namesake high school in Edzo, Mantla recalls, he intended his people to learn and speak in two different languages.

"We always follow up and respect that mission statement so that's the reason why we've been teaching and using the language in the schools, in the homes, in the communities, at public meetings," Mantla said. "We know this is what his vision was, so to this day that's what we've been carrying on."

In Behchoko, the Aboriginal Head Start Program for preschoolers plays a big part in the effort to preserve the Tlicho language, though Mantla said successful language education needs start even before birth, with young parents-to-be speaking their language at home.

"It has to come from the home," she said. "They're the first teachers of their child so they have to use the language so that their child will grow in the first five years ... hearing as much language at home and then when they enter preschool it's carried on into the school system."

While most Tlicho people still use their language, Mantla said the region is not immune to residential schooling's lasting negative effects on their language. Now they face a new challenge - a younger generation that chooses to speak English over their weaker mother tongue.

"Because of the changes in our lifestyle now with TV and everything that we see and hear now - it's all English. So some young people are taking more of the English activities or programs more than our Tlicho language," Mantla said.

"I know it's hard and we can't make changes in their lifestyle, but we're trying to encourage them ... to use and teach their language at home as much as they can."

Other regions of the NWT are facing similar challenges as they work to preserve their languages.

In the Beaufort Delta region, only about 24 per cent of the population spoke an aboriginal language in 2004. The Gwich'in language is one of the hardest hit, with less than 300 speakers across the territory.

Edward Wright, resource co-ordinator for the Gwich'in Teaching and Learning Language Centre in Fort McPherson, said much of the language hasn't been passed down from the older population.

"There's been no real carrying on of the language, partly as a result of the residential school issue and how those people were discouraged from speaking their own language," he said, adding that in the past, Gwich'in language programs have targeted the middle-aged population with some success, "not huge successes." Now, he said, the language centre is trying to develop more programs geared toward newborns to five-year-olds.

"There needs to be a focus on the younger children within the home environment so that's another big effort we're working on to try to get that off the ground within the next year."

Wright says lack of funding is a big issue for language programs across the North, and Gwich'in speakers, particularly, are dwindling because there isn't enough money available to further develop curriculum and hire all the necessary translators.

"Money is always an issue," he said. "We're all at basically the same stage, however the Inuvialuit as well have much more of a success rate because they have more people involved in the development side and producing materials, and they tend to have speakers that are more eager to learn and to share and promote their language."

Rosemary Kirby is an Inuvialuktun consultant at Aurora College's second-language program for teachers, based in Inuvik. She said she believed it may have been easier for people in the Tlicho region to maintain their language because many of them went to school in or near their home communities, whereas students in regional communities had to travel to other centres, often experiencing a language gap before schools were built closer to home. Even now, she said she doesn't see many community leaders promoting Inuvialuit languages.

"There doesn't seem to be big voices in the community to make the language important," she said. "Our leaders should support their own language, whether it's in the schools or in the community."

But regardless of location, she said, aboriginal languages are struggling to survive.

"It doesn't seem to be a priority in the education system for aboriginal language programs to be the forefront of their goals."