Saturday, December 10, 2022

Vancouver school name is now unpronounceable for most people

Well, let's see if this works. A Vancouver elementary school has just renamed itself wek̓ʷan̓əs tə syaqʷəm. Did that come out in your browser, or did you get a bunch of little rectangular placeholders for unsupported characters?

Sir Matthew Begbie Elementary School in East Vancouver is now to be known as an unpronounceable name in the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ dialect of the Musqueam people, meaning "the sun has risen" or "the sun rising over the horizon". I'm not entirely sure how 5-year olds are going to deal with that, but clearly some people thought this was a good idea. Whether it is pronounceable or not, most people won't be able to write or type it.

I can understand that maybe they don't want to have their school named after a 19th century hanging judge. But wouldn't Sun Has Risen Elementary School have sufficed? Doesn't that sound nice? And wouldn't it serve the same purpose?

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