Language always matters
Prince George is blessed with its academics at CNC and UNBC, world-class experts in their field whose knowledge not only improves the community today but is contributing towards a better future. In the case of Bill Poser, the value of his work will still be felt generations from now. His book The Carrier Language: An Introduction is a vitally important work to make the area Indigenous language accessible to a broader audience. A renowned linguistics expert (he graduated from Harvard, his doctoral dissertation at MIT had a Japanese focus and he taught for a time at Stanford University before returning to Prince George), Poser will talk to anyone, anytime, about why language preservation is so important.
He spoke to The Citizen this week about that very topic, in the wake of comments made by Prince George-Mackenzie MLA Mike Morris to a local reporter that the $50 million set aside in the provincial budget for Indigenous language programming might have been better spent on law enforcement in First Nations communities.
“They’re spending $50 million on Indigenous language preservation, which I think is important, but at the same time the $50 million would have paid for a couple of hundred extra police officers in rural B.C. and in our First Nations communities to help address the sexual violence and domestic abuse we have in those communities,” Morris said in the interview with 94.3 The Goat.
He’s right.
Morris said Indigenous language preservation is important but then talked about how far $50 million would go to addressing sexual violence and domestic abuse in First Nations communities. His opinion on that topic is as informed as Poser’s on language preservation. Morris spent 32 years with the RCMP, much of it stationed in rural northern communities.
What Morris didn’t say is also important. He talked about police officers but he didn’t mention law enforcement. His field experience has made him keenly aware that uniformed cops showing up on a reserve to slap cuffs on residents and throw them in the back of cruisers fixes nothing.
As the North District superintendent before retiring from the force, Morris would also have played a role in the RCMP’s growing efforts at alternative policing, where officers are partnering with various agencies to address not just crime but the underlying causes. In some cases, that involves officers ditching the uniform and taking a social worker’s approach to the individuals that make up their caseload.
Modern policing philosophy recognizes that arrests and convictions alone don’t address sexual abuse, domestic violence, addictions, trauma or mental health issues. Reducing crime and getting regular offenders out of the system requires using incarceration as the last resort, not the first one.
In Thursday’s Citizen, Cpl. Sonja Blom was featured as one of this year’s Top 40 Under 40 by the Prince George Chamber of Commerce. Blom is the supervisor of the Car 60 Unit, a program she helped establish, where local officers work with Northern Health, the Northern Medical Program at UNBC and area mental health professionals to tackle domestic violence and other crimes where mental health issues play a significant role. She recently helped oversee the introduction of similar units in Kelowna and Kamloops.
It is this kind of policing that may lead to a long-overdue reconciliation between the RCMP and Canada’s First Nations, hopefully turning the page on a painful, racist history.
Preserving and restoring Indigenous languages has to be part of that process. One of the central genocidal goals of Canada’s residential school system was to strip away language and culture from Indigenous youth, disconnecting them from their heritage.
A long-accepted fact in Poser’s field of linguistics is that language frames how people see the world, both as individuals and as a society. Wearing his educator’s hat, Poser took the time to engage with several commenters to the Morris story on The Citizen’s website, offering both history and context to readers angered by the government investing in Indigenous language preservation.
In reply to a post about gender neutral language, Poser pointed out that most of B.C.’s Indigenous languages don’t have separate pronouns for he and she. In Carrier, the word “en” is used interchangeably.
In other words, the Carrier language may have a simple, elegant solution for transgender and intersex individuals who feel neither he or she are proper labels for their identity. En may be that inclusive, non-discriminatory word English – a fluid, continuously evolving language built on the adoption of words and phrases from many other languages – needs.
Modern policing and language preservation both require collaborative efforts between governments, communities and agencies. As Poser rightly points out, the B.C. Liberals also spent money on Indigenous language preservation while in office and the NDP’s commitment is simply an increase.
Solutions to difficult social problems start with respectful dialogue and attentive listening, two approaches that consistently work in any language.