Awakening Southern Tutchone through a community centred approach, Kwänlin Dun First Nation has started a new six-month intensive Southern Tutchone Language Revitalization Program.

This program offers a unique opportunity to gain a Certificate in Language Proficiency from Simon Fraser University, in collaboration with the Yukon Native Language Centre.

It includes nine university courses and starts with a four-week immersion course where students are immersed in the language for 6 hours a day, mimicking how babies would naturally learn language.

This immersion course emphasizes oral retention before progressing to reading and writing skills.

Students then focus on the alphabet, writing system and pronunciation through a phonetics course.

This is then followed up with an on the land immersion camp where cultural activities are performed in Southern Tutchone.

During this time, students learn the technology used in language documentation and preservation, as this plays a vial role in language revitalization and makes it accessible to a wider audience.

Next, the cohort will learn grammar and sentence structure before embarking on another six-week immersion course, and another on-the-land immersion camp, aiming to deepen language retention and cultural connections.

It is important to celebrate the little milestones to build confidence and a sense of community in the cohort. Students are excited to speak Southern Tutchone and are doing great in their first few weeks.

They even speak Southern Tutchone to each other in the community and already make Southern Tutchone TikTok videos on their own time for fun; and we are only in week 5 of the entire program.