Gitxsan language

Gitksan is a First Nations language of northwestern British Columbia. It is a Tsimshianic language, closely related to the neighboring Nisga'a language. Indeed, linguists have often treated Gitksan and Nisga'a as dialects of a single Nass-Gitksan language. The two groups are, however, politically separate and prefer to refer to Gitksan and Nisga'a as distinct languages.

Gitksan is an endangered language, currently estimated to have no more than 1,000 speakers, of whom the great majority are elders. Few if any children grow up speaking Gitksan at home: the few young speakers are former students of the now closed Gitksan immersion school.

Synonymy

The name the Gitksan people use for their language has slightly different forms in different dialects. One therefore sees Gitksan, the form used in the Hazelton area, Gitxsan, the form used in the Eastern dialects, and Gitxsen, the form used in the Western dialects. In Gitksan the language itself is called Gitksanimx̣, Gitxsanimx̣, or Gitxsenimx̣ according to dialect. Other variants found are Gityskyan and Giklsan.

Ethnologue/ISO/DIS 639-3 Code

GIT

Bibliography

Halpin, Marjorie and Margaret Seguin (1990) Tsimshian Peoples: Southern Tsimshian, Coast Tsimshian, Nishga, and Gitksan, in Wayne Sutles (ed) Handbook of North American Indians: Volume 7. Northwest Coast. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution) pp 267-284.

Hindle, Lonnie and Bruce Rigsby (1973) A short practical dictionary of the Gitksan language, Northwest Anthropological Research Notes 1:1-60.

Rigsby, Bruce (1986) Gitksan Grammar. Unpublished manuscript, University of Queensland, Australia.

External Links

• Gitksan entry on First Nations Languages of British Columbia site
• Bibliography on Gitksan linguistics
• The Status of the First Nations Languages of British Columbia
• Ethnologue entry