Linguistics: First Nations: The Culture and Language of the Beaver People
This paper discusses the Beavers, an Athapaskan-speaking people of the British Columbia and Alberta Peace River area. The Athapaskan family presents the greatest internal diversity among Native languages, with sixteen distinct languages in Canada alone, including Sekani, Chipewyan, Hare, Dogrib, and Beaver (Cook and Howe, 2001). Current as of 2001, there are two hundred estimated speakers in Canada, with none present in the United States, based on Cook and Howes study in the Contemporary Linguistic Analysis. Yet, in 1986, there were approximately twelve hundred status Indians who spoke Beaver dialects. The Beaver-speaking population has grown and withered over the years
