DEH CHO
Colourful red, blue and yellow buttons are popping up across the Deh Cho, encouraging Dene language speakers to practise their language.

Dahti Tsetso has launched the Dene Zhatie Button Challenge for language speakers in the Deh Cho. - April Hudson/NNSL photo

The project, dubbed the Dene Zhatie Button Challenge by creator Dahti Tsetso, aims to revitalize the language and encourage speakers who are still learning to become fluent.

Tsetso said the idea sprung from readings she did in her post-secondary Dene Zhatie language class.

"We were assigned readings to summarize and present to the class and this happened to be the one I read. In that reading, there was a Quebec Cree community who did the Button Challenge," she said.

"The idea was the same -- that if you're wearing a button, you're committing to speaking the language in the community when you're out and about and when you come across other people wearing the button."

Blue buttons are for fluent speakers, while red is for semi-fluent and yellow is for beginners.

"There are many language speakers in our communities, but oftentimes people will use English instead of a Dene language when greeting and interacting with each other," Tsetso said. "The idea behind the challenge is to get the language out into everyday areas of our life -- in the grocery store, post office, anywhere."

Tsetso was in Fort Providence earlier this week to deliver a presentation on the Button Challenge to a gathering of leaders attending the Dehcho First Nation's strategic planning conference.

She will be distributing buttons to Deh Cho communities through the chiefs at the conference as well as through her fellow language classmates.

"A number of the ladies in our language program are based out of Fort Providence. They're kind of excited, because we've been talking about this button challenge as a class for a while now," Tsetso said.

"They're excited to have the button and promote it."

Language revitalization has been a priority for members of the Dehcho First Nations, which is sponsoring the buttons, especially since their involvement in a separate initiative in 2014 called Dehcho K'ehodi, which translates as "taking care of Dehcho."

As part of that initiative, community leaders discussed conservation objectives and protected areas. Tsetso said a large part of their discussion revolved around language promotion.

"The language is so important for people when it comes to their identity as Dene people. I've heard so many elders talk about how there is so much cultural belief and way of seeing the world that you can't translate, that's not being received by people of my generation because we're not language speakers," Tsetso said. "For us to be able to understand more fully the Dene perspective of the world, language becomes a really key piece in gaining that understanding."

Buttons are available at the Dehcho First Nations office as well as from Tsetso.

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