BC umbenannt Sehenswürdigkeiten in Sprachen, die nur von einer Handvoll Menschen gesprochen werden
B.C. keeps renaming landmarks in languages spoken by only a handful of people
BC umbenannt Sehenswürdigkeiten in Sprachen, die nur von einer Handvoll Menschen gesprochen werden
B.C. keeps renaming landmarks in languages spoken by only a handful of people
8 Kommentare
First it was French on cereal boxes, now it’s Indigenous names on street signs.
>More recently, the City of Vancouver [made headlines](https://www.junonews.com/p/vancouvers-trutch-st-renamed-to-sxmkymasm) this year when it renamed Trutch Street to šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm following a unanimous 2021 city council vote in favour of the name change. According to the most recent comprehensive report on British Columbia First Nations languages, there are just over 100 fluent speakers of the language and far fewer are capable of reading or writing in it.
Awesome.
This is a great way to help preserve some critically endangered languages and bring attention to them.
> Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park—home to one of North America’s largest sockeye salmon runs—to Tsútswecw Provincial Park. The new name, pronounced “choo-chwek,” is a Secwepemc term meaning “many rivers.”
Also, naming a location after what it actually is is just good naming.
Scientists keep naming things in a language no one has spoken for centuries.
When languages are lost forever, it is as serious as the loss of a species. Humanity loses some of its diversity, just as the planet loses diversity when a species dies out. Changing place names is a great and unobtrusive way to help retain language and identity. All it requires of people is to learn and use a new name.
So ? Let’s go learn some new words. I’m game.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for a revenge-driven renaming of every european named landmark. But if there’s a location that has had a first Nations name for a long long time, why not use that original name ?
By the same token, I’m not in favour of Toronto’s Sankofa square. For the reasons stated above.
I’m for language preservation efforts in general, and I think it’s absurd that so many of our place names are after people who don’t reflect our values or in many cases contributed nothing to Canada at all. We should routinely and democratically update place names to better reflect our society.
That said, place names should be functional and the population of BC does not speak these languages or read this alphabet. I think in most cases they should use the Anglicized versions of these names so that more people can say them.
Looks like a right wing struggle session article about „reconciliation“ (scare quotes not mine). The arguments are:
1. Not many people speak the language
All the better to keep their dying language alive at least in some part. Author missing the point of reconciliation.
2. The original names are better
Classic fear of change with a little sprinkling of „old name better because Anglo“.
3. The new names are hard to say, concern trolling about emergency services. For sure, *these savage words are so rough on my old stock tongue, how many ambulance patients will die because of them?*
I’m not sure if the authors realize, but human brains can learn and adapt. And it’s not like there’s some draconian punishment should you use the wrong place name. People will adapt.
Looking forward to these lads doing an article about football and baseball teams and how the old names should be brought back.
And why exactly do only a „handful of people“ speak that language? Could be centuries of government sanctioned genocide and systematic oppression destruction of that language, and culture? Maybe making some effort to help preserve that language now on *street signs* is the absolute lowest fucking bar we as a society should be clearing.