Gitxsan is a First Nations language of northwestern British Columbia. It is a Tsimshianic language, closely related to the neighboring Nisga'a language. The two groups are, however, politically separate and prefer to refer to Gitxsan and Nisga'a as distinct languages. Gitxsan is an endangered language, currently estimated to have no more than 1,000 speakers, of whom the great majority are elders. Few if any children grow up speaking Gitxsan at home. Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Tsimshian (usually pronounced in English SIM-shee-an), translated as People Inside the Skeena River, are a Native American and First Nation people who live around Terrace and Prince Rupert, on the north coast of British Columbia and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of sounds and the human voice. ... Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... This is a concise version of the International Phonetic Alphabet for English sounds. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Motto: Splendor Sine Occasu (Latin: Splendour without diminishment) Official languages English de facto (none stated in law) Flower Pacific dogwood Tree Western Redcedar Bird Stellers Jay Capital Victoria Largest city Vancouver Lieutenant-Governor Iona Campagnolo Premier Gordon Campbell (BC Liberal) Parliamentary representation  - House seats  - Senate seats 36 6 Area... Tsimshianic is a family of languages spoken in northern British Columbia and southern Alaska. ... Nisgaa (also Nass, Nisgha, Nisaa, Nishka, Niska, Nishga, Nisqa’a) is a Tsimshianic language of the Nisgaa people of northwestern British Columbia. ... An endangered language is a language with so few surviving speakers that it is in danger of falling out of use. ...

Bibliography

• Halpin, Marjorie, and Margaret Seguin (1990) "Tsimshian Peoples: Southern Tsimshian, Coast Tsimshian, Nishga, and Gitksan." In Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 7: Northwest Coast, ed. by Wayne Suttles, pp. 267-284. Washington: Smithsonian Institution).
• Hindle, Lonnie and Bruce Rigsby (1973) A short practical dictionary of the Gitksan language, Northwest Anthropological Research Notes 1:1-60.
• Rigsby, Bruce (1986) Gitksan Grammar. Unpublished manuscript, University of Queensland, Australia.

Marjorie Halpin (February 11, 1937-August 30, 2000) was a U.S.-Canadian anthropologist best known for her work on Northwest Coast art and culture, especially the Tsimshian and Gitksan peoples. ...

External links

• Official website of the Gitxsan People