Long considered extinct, pentl’ach has now been declared a living language and added to British Columbia’s official list of First Nations languages.
The reclassification of pentl’ach (pronounced “PUNT-lutch”) was the result of both linguistic and administrative work by the Qualicum First Nation on Vancouver Island’s east coast, with support from the First Peoples’ Cultural Council.
The Coast Salish language had been considered extinct because the last well known fluent speaker died in the 1940s.
But Mathew Andreatta, a Qualicum member and researcher with the pentl’ach revitalization project, said the language was never truly gone.
A healing affirmation
Andreatta called the reclassification “an affirmation of something that we’ve always known and that we’ve always
