Sacred Name Collection — Education

Indigenous languages in this school · in preparation

Dene — the Dene Languages

Not one language but a family — five languages named here in their own names, and a sixth nation honoured beside them.

In preparation — in partnership with the Dene nations' own speakers. The goal is the whole collection in the Dene languages — Dëne Sųłıné, Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì, Dene Zhatıé, Dene Kǝdǝ́ and Dene Tha': every book to read and to hear, here and in the school. Nothing is published until their speakers have guided and reviewed it.

The language

Dene names a family of northern Athabaskan languages spoken across Denendeh and the northern regions of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Each language stands here by its own name: Dëne Sųłıné, the largest by speakers; Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì, whose nation has governed itself since the Tłı̨chǫ Agreement of 2003; Dene Zhatıé of the Dehcho; Dene Kǝdǝ́ of the Sahtú; and Dene Tha' of northwestern Alberta. Dinjii Zhuh Ginjik, the language of the Gwich'in Nation, stands in the Northwest Territories' official family beside them and is honoured here under its own nation's authority.

All of the Northwest Territories' Dene languages hold official-language status there. Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì carries a complete New Testament (2003), Dëne Sųłıné carries the family's longest Bible-translation history, and since 2022 the Tłı̨chǫ Government has permanently funded a Language Revitalization Division — the work is governed, not merely hoped for.

In this school

In this school, the place of the Dene languages is being prepared on the same terms as the library's: no lesson, reader, or word list in any Dene language will be made here until that nation's own educators have guided and reviewed it. When the door opens, it opens whole — the full course of learning, to read and to hear, in the school as in the library, language by language, nation by nation.

Their own schools and teachers

Learn the Dene languages in writing

This room opens first for learning to read and write — and it begins with an honest statement: Dene is five languages, and each carries its own standard spelling, set by its own nation. No single chart could stand for all five without lying about four of them. Each language stands here under its own name, with its own standard and its own teachers.

The writing

Dëne Sųłıné

Written in the standard Dene orthography used across the northern Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, and Northwest Territories communities. It is taught as a credited subject — Saskatchewan's Dene 10, 20, 30 curriculum — and at university level in First Nations University of Canada's Dene Language Studies programs.

Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì

Written in the Tłı̨chǫ standard orthography, developed with the nation's own education board (the orthography documented by the Dene Speech Atlas, linked below) and carried today by the Tłı̨chǫ Government's Language Revitalization Division, permanently funded since 2022. Tłı̨chǫ is a language of instruction in the nation's own schools, with an immersion kindergarten in Behchokǫ̀.

Dene Zhatıé

The Dehcho language, written in its own standard orthography and carried under the Dehcho First Nations' own Dene Zhatıé Language Plan.

Dene Kǝdǝ́

The Sahtú language, written in its own standard orthography, carried by the Sahtú communities and their Dene Ts'ı̨lı̨ School work.

Dene Tha'

The language of northwestern Alberta, written in its own standard orthography under the Dene Tha' First Nation's own authority.

Dinjii Zhuh Ginjik

The Gwich'in language stands in the Northwest Territories' official family beside the five, under the Gwich'in Nation's own authority and its own standard spelling; it is named here so it is not silently folded into another people's name.

Practice

No single practice sheet stands here, because five languages carry five standards, and each belongs to its own nation. Practice belongs with each nation's own schools and materials.

Learn from their own teachers

The writing is the people's own gift to their learners. The words of the books wait for the partnership.

Hear the Dene languages today

These voices are the Dene nations' own, published by their own teachers and stations. The link takes you to their house; nothing of their voice is copied here.

Dëne Sųłıné

Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì

Dene Zhatıé

Dene Zhatıé's speaker-audio apps — the South Slavey Intro app and the Dehcho Dene Zhatié app — stand on the GNWT apps page above, and its Legislative Assembly tour is narrated by interpreter Mary Jane Cazon.

Dene Kǝdǝ́

The Shutaot'ine Intro app stands on the GNWT apps page above.

Dene Tha'

Dene Tha' is strong in its own community — most adults speak Dene Dháh as a first language, and community radio broadcasts in it — but no public stream, app, or lesson audio specific to Dene Tha' could be verified. The nearest public audio is the Dene Zhatıé material above: a related language, not the same dialect, and named as such.

An open invitation

Teachers: if you teach the Dene languages — in a community school, an immersion nest, a college, or at a kitchen table — this school asks for your guidance before it makes a single lesson. In this collection the holy names are never invented: what the Creator is called in a language is for its own speakers to give, and the spelling of every text is theirs to settle. Write to the publisher at [email protected].

Authority over these languages sits with each nation's own government — the Tłı̨chǫ Government, the Dehcho First Nations, the Sahtú, the Dene Tha' First Nation, and the Gwich'in — under the umbrella of the Dene Nation. Each will be approached by name.

To hear it

When the Dene languages open here, they will be heard as well as read — in their own voices, spoken and recorded by their own speakers, language by language. Until then these doors are silent in them on purpose: the first voice heard in each should be its own people's.

The other doors

This doorway carries no advertising.