Timmy Masso has become an ardent advocate for the preservation of all First Nations dialects at a time when Canada is planning to spend about $90-million on Indigenous languages and culture.The Globe and Mail
Timmy Masso deftly manipulates colourful wooden blocks covered in the characters that make up Nuu-chah-nulth, the language he has been learning and teaching. The 14-year-old places the letters m-a-p-t face up on the kitchen table at his home in Ucluelet, B.C., creating a root word he can use to spell the names of different trees.
"Lots of plants have 'mapt' at the end," he said, demonstrating how to use the language-learning tool he and his family created. "It kinda means like, 'sucking nutrients out of the land.'"
The Grade 9 student started learning the language after participating in healing rituals to help his older brother, Hjalmer Wenstob, recover from brain surgery. His Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation grandparents attended residential schools, where they lost the language.
Mr. Masso took Nuu-chah-nulth night classes with family members and began teaching it to his classmates during their cultural studies classes at school.
"It was just amazing to learn my language," he said in an interview. "And I'm still learning it."
He became fully involved at the highest of political levels in the debate about preserving Indigenous languages last year, when he attended the BC Assembly of First Nations' (AFN) annual meeting with his brother, who was a youth delegate. Carolyn Bennett, then the minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, was there to speak.
Mr. Masso persuaded a chief to help him get on the mic during a discussion so he could tell the minister about the state of language teaching at home.
"I got up and I said that we're not doing well," he said. "I was the one who was teaching the language in my school."
When Ms. Bennett approached Mr. Masso afterward and asked if she could do anything to improve things, he told her of the need to protect languages across Canada.
"She said she'd try her best," he recalled. "But she'd need my help to advocate for the language."
So he stepped aside from school for a few months and began attending events with family members focused on preserving Indigenous languages, sometimes as a speaker.
He has become an ardent advocate for the preservation of all First Nations dialects at a time when Canada is planning to spend about $90-million on Indigenous languages and culture, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is working to bring an Indigenous languages act to life.
"Language is everything," Mr. Masso said. "Time is running short and we must get our thoughts right to preserve our languages."
"I wasn't alone"
Indigenous dialects the world over are being erased by majority languages, sparking what Greg Poelzer and Ken Coates call a global "death watch" in their book, From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation. That was something Mr. Masso could connect with when he heard it at a conference on Indigenous languages in Honolulu earlier this year.
"I felt for the first time that I wasn't alone," he said. "I felt that language loss is real – and for the same reasons – all around the world."
None of British Columbia's First Nations languages have more than 1,500 speakers and while the number of people who know one of 70 Indigenous languages in Canada has risen by 3.1 per cent since 2006, the number of aboriginals able to carry a conversation in those languages dropped by 5.8 per cent in the same period.
Mr. Masso's band, the Tla-o-qui-aht, is one of 14 Nuu-chah-nulth nations in the Vancouver Island region. Statistics Canada said in October that just 15 women and 15 men are left who can speak Nuu-chah-nulth.
Heritage Canada is investing $89.9-million over the next three years to support Indigenous languages and cultures, including $69-million for language classes, cultural camps, learning resources, apprenticeship projects and the development of digital learning tools via the Aboriginal Languages Initiative.
Perry Bellegarde, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, says few actions and measures of reconciliation are more important than the urgency of saving aboriginal languages. He notes 70 per cent of on-reserve youth who are skilled in their language report high levels of well-being.
"It is through our languages that First Nations will be rebuilt and revitalized as nations," he said.
A different relationship
Mr. Wenstob says it was not always apparent that his younger brother would grow into being an activist. Mr. Wenstob, now 24, was the child who spoke for his family at potlatches, using the booming voice that served him as an AFN youth rep.
Mr. Masso was more intrigued by the dancing, but was too young to take part in official ceremonies. So he danced on his own for fun and wrote a song to go along with it for a celebration of his grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. He used an iPad app to learn enough of the Nuu-chah-nulth language to write the lyrics.
When the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge came to Victoria last year, Mr. Wenstob had a brief chance to speak with them and Mr. Trudeau during an event on the royal tour, and he used it to perform Mr. Masso's song and give the royal couple a drum. And it was Mr. Masso who taught Mr. Wenstob how to introduce himself to Prince William in Nuu-chah-nulth.
Mr. Wenstob said that when he stepped up to address the dignitaries, he saw Prince William give a little kick to the Prime Minister, snapping Mr. Trudeau out of a conversation to ensure he was paying attention to the young Nuu-chah-nulth man.
"It was a great success when the Prince kicked the Prime Minster," Mr. Wenstob said. "It felt like a different relationship."
A heartfelt letter from the Royals a few weeks later proved the song had resulted in an important moment of reconciliation with the Crown, added Mr. Wenstob, who had originally been reluctant to attend the event.
Now, Mr. Masso uses dance to pass on cultural knowledge to other youngsters, and loves to break out his teaching aids whenever he has the chance.
Characters and sounds
"So, we've got h-u-u-m-ii-s," Mr. Masso says, digging through the pile of blocks, configuring the characters to spell "red cedar," an integral part of the West Coast Indigenous world. "It is the giver of life."
A lot of the pronunciations in Nuu-chah-nulth reflect the territory, he said, explaining the words often sound like what they represent.
"You hear the waves crashing or the water going between the rocks in a river," he said. "The sound is like a 'sshh.' Sometimes, you're at a softer place and the language sounds a bit softer. And sometimes, when you're on the coast, right here, you've got a lot of harder sounds."
He makes a clicking noise, exhibiting the sharpness in a word.
The UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, the provisions of which Canada adopted last year, says aboriginal languages must be protected.
Judith Sayers, president of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, said she does not want "bureaucracy and limitations" to slow the process of getting the language dollars to First Nations so they can fulfill that mandate.
"Nuu-chah-nulth language is near extinction and we can't wait much longer," she said. "We need curriculum. We need immersion courses."
It is also important that those who would benefit most from the language programs have easy access to them without fees or tuition, she stressed.
"Nuu-chah-nulth need to control the process, not universities or other institutions."
The Assembly of First Nations has been holding "national engagement sessions" to gather input from chiefs, elders and language experts on what the organization should advise the government to include in the languages bill.
"No First Nations language is safe," Mr. Bellegarde said, noting that language is one of five things required to be recognized as a nation internationally. "Deliberate interventions, which include all people – young and old alike – relearning our languages, are essential."
So far, Mr. Masso has travelled to Kelowna, Vancouver, Nanaimo, Victoria and Washington State in his quest to help with that. He writes weekly e-mails to federal politicians, including Mr. Trudeau, and he was honoured as a "language champion" in July by the First Nations Education Steering Committee.
He is back in school now, but said he will not stop trying to encourage his peers to begin the learning journey with words like "hello," or "goodbye."
"If we are working together, I'm sure we can get it in the schools," he said. "And I'm sure we can get it across Canada for everyone."