Respecting the Language of Elders: Ideological Shift and Linguistic Discontinuity in a Northern Athapascan Community

This article examines an ideological shift related to and affecting language shift, focusing especially on children's experiences. I show that while elders retained their status as intellectual authorities responsible for passing their knowledge on to younger community members, their knowledge became limited to practices conceptualized as "traditionally Kaska," of which language was an integral part. As a result, the acquisition of Kaska became subject to the same social practices that organized other forms of "traditional indigenous" or specialized knowledge such that speaking Kaska became the domain of elders. Children's and youth's commentary and practices articulated and solidified this ideological transformation.