Lorna Wanosts’a7 Williams [is my name]. The way that we usually say it is that I’m Lil̓wat7úl — that’s where my family and community are — but I live currently on the lands of the Lekwungen speaking people in Victoria.

On an important word in Ucwalmícwts,  the Lil’wat language

Well, a word that always comes to me is nsnek̓wnúk̓wa7, because, in my language, it’s the word for family; it’s the word for friends; it’s the word for community; and it’s the word for a gathering of people like we had today. I think, because it means all of those things, it really gives a good idea of the way that the world works in our ways. 

I think that it’s always been one that I’ve used since I used it in writing a book for grade 2 in 1979. I was doing the curriculum and I was trying to think of how to make a transition from family to community, and I was thinking, of course, in English because it was a social studies book for public schools. And then I was driving on and all of a sudden that word came to me — we have that one word that means all those relationships, and I just thought how beautiful that was. So when we introduce ourselves we always say our name and then we say this is the land we’re from and this is where my family, community are. That word snek̓wnúk̓wa7. 

On what the International Decade of Indigenous Languages means 

There’s finally an acknowledgment and a recognition that there are Indigenous languages around the world and that there’s going to be attention paid to them — after all these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of people being colonized and losing their languages. So the International Decade of Indigenous Languages is really meaningful because finally I think the world realizes that there are Indigenous languages and that everyone is of value.