Chalcomel

Khalkomel - one of the Native American languages belonging to the central Salish branch of the Salish language family . Distributed in the Fraser River region and in the south of Vancouver Island in the Canadian province of British Columbia . The languages Skomish , Seshelt and Nuksak are related to him.

Khalkomel consists of three dialects :

• Halq'eméylem - in the upper reaches of the Stolo River (a tributary of the Fraser ),
• Hǝn'q'ǝmin'ǝm '- in the lower reaches of the Stolo River
• Hulq'umín'um ', spoken by six closely related tribes in the Georgia Strait area

In 1977, the American linguist Brent Galloway from the University of California at Berkeley compiled the first grammar , and also developed a variant of writing based on the Latin alphabet , which was adopted as official. He is currently working on a dictionary.

Halkomel has a rich oral tradition, which expresses a peculiar, different from European, vision of the world.

The language is on the verge of extinction, largely due to the education of Native American children in special public schools. According to estimates for the year 2000 , the number of fluent speakers of Halkomel was less than twelve. A number of language conservation programs have been developed by Native American organizations with the support of the University of British Columbia .