Language is the key to one’s cultural identity and it is also the key to preserving our traditional knowledge. A number of our teachings are very difficult to ‘translate’ into English they lose their meaning or are ‘changed’ into something different. Our Language is a “verb” based language and it is ‘alive’. It needs to be kept alive by being spoken daily in our homes, schools and workplaces. Although, traditionally we are an orally based Culture, we are adapting and changing to be flexible and grow. We are writing our language down in books and are looking for new and effective methods to keep our language alive. We want our children to be able to think, dream, read, write and speak fluently in their T^silhqox-Tin language. As Aboriginal people we have always been an oral people, who have passed our history and other teachings through story-telling and other various methods. Story-telling is particularly effective with young children however it is difficult to compete with television. APTN has now assisted in this area as Aboriginal Peoples now have a forum to have Aboriginal ‘cartoons’ for their youth. Furthermore, we can create ‘comics’ and story books for our youth in our language. Through working in creating a T^silhqox-Tin animation that can be brought into children' s home, children learn through repetition while having fun.

Grant Alphonse T^silhqox-Tin