Talk:Gwichʼin

message: I’d like to thank Evertype for inviting me to this discussion.
First, I would like to make a few comments about what has been written in this discussion already.
Observation 1
::From Gholton: Standards bodies such as Alaska Native Language Center and Yukon Native Language Center use plain old apostrophe.
The Alaska Native Language Center and other language bodies in the region, in their publications, very often use the curly apostrophe. The same goes for languages in Yukon Territory. For publications which use the curly apostrophe, see 
::::Ahtna: Kari 1986.  Tatl’ahwt’aenn nenn’ = The headwaters people's country : narratives of the Upper Ahtna Athabaskans  
::::Gwich’in: Frank 1995. Neerihiinjìk : we traveled from place to place 
::::Gwich’in: Belle 1992. Shandaa in my lifetime  
::::Kaska: Moore 2002. Point of View in Kaska Historical Narratives
And perhaps most importantly for our discussion, Thompson 1984. Athabskan languages and the schools: a handbook for teachers. This publication contains pages which show all the orthographies for the Alaskan languages. In all cases (Ahtna, Deg Hit’an, Han, Holikachuk, Koyukon, Gwich’in, Tanacross, Tanaina, Tanana, Upper Kuskokwim, Upper Tanana) the curly apostrophe is used. These pages were scanned and added to the Alaska Native Language Center’s website http://www.uaf.edu/anic/orthographies.html . The scans show the original curly apostrophe, but whoever did the web page used the dumb quote in the html versions of the scans. 
I think that these sources make it pretty clear that there is certainly a tradition for using the curly apostrophe in Dene languages. For better or for worse, the dumb quote and curly apostrophe have been, for practical “real world” purposes, essentially interchangeable, as they are in English. Thus we cannot use “common practice” to help us here.
Observation 2
::From Evertype: Neither U+0027 APOSTROPHE and U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK should be used for Gwichʼin, as they are punctuation characters. As noted above, I take my source for the use of U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE from Chris Harvey's web site. Chris works with aboriginal communities in Canada and I accept his judgement on orthography. I don't use U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK for Gwichʼin, though it is certainly preferable to U+0027 APOSTROPHE, which is a typewriter character
I’d like to apologise now for not keeping all of my website pages up to date. In fact, the Gwich’in keyboards from languagegeek.com use U+2019 for the apostrophe (for reasons why, see below). I’ve now updated those pages. 
Observation 3
::From Gholton: But it is empowering for Gwich'in people to be able to type easily (as on a typewriter) rather than having to look for characters in the upper code pages.
This isn’t really an issue for Dene languages. There are many other non-English characters in their orthographies which require special keyboard layouts (or searching through character maps) to access. The ł letter is a good example, common to all Dene languages. Other languages, such as Hän, require such combinations as ą̈̂. There is really nothing more convenient, from a text input perspective, between the dumb quote and the curly apostrophe.
Conclusions
We are left with three choices for the glottal/ejective: U+2019, U+02BC, and U+0027. 
::a) U+02BC is not a good choice because most Native language material contains English/French words, sentences, and paragraphs. In English and French, the apostrophe in words like “can’t” is not U+02BC. Also, there are many English language materials which contain Gwich’in (and other languages). It is unreasonable to expect people to distinguish between the English apostrophe U+2019 and a Gwich’in apostrophe U+02BC.
::b) That said, we are left with either U+0027~U+2019. At the moment, many language communities and language/education organisations in Canada and the US will be implementing (or have implemented) keyboard technology which uses U+2019. For our discussion, some of the most relevant are: Hän (Yukon), Southern Tutchone (Yukon), Tagish (Yukon), Kaska (Yukon, B.C.), Sekeni (B.C.), Chipewyan (NWT and Alta), South Slavey (Alta), and I guess, most importantly, Gwich’in (NWT). The decision to go with U+2019 was based on personal discussion with elders and language teachers. In virtually all cases, there was no awareness that there was an issue, but once explained that there was a choice, the curly apostrophe was preferred.
::c) The dumb quote isn’t stable in the sense that word-processors are set to “curly quotes” by default. The effects of this can be seen in languages — like Carrier — where the glottal stop is written word initially. If the typist is inputting the U+0027 apostrophe, a word like /ʔink’ez/ ends up looking like ‘ink’ez which is clearly wrong. If the typist is inputting the U+2019 apostrophe, the word is correctly displayed ’ink’ez.
Based on all this, I would suggest using U+2019 for the Athapaskan apostrophe. - Friday, July 14, 2006  Chris Harvey
Languagegeek 15:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Evertype 16:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that U+2019 is better than U+02BC. But in my Tlingit work I differentiate between U+0027 and U+2019. The former is the orthographic apostrophe used for ejectives, and the latter is the “printer’s” apostrophe used for quotation, etc. People rarely notice the difference in use, however. — Jéioosh 21:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please see Conclusion c) above for discussion on how U+0027 is not a stable character. At some point in the life of a document on its way to publication, there is a good chance that all U+0027s will be changed into curly quotes (left or right depending on word spacing). I think we might agree that the difference “in the mind of the reader” between the dumb quote and the curly apostrophe is tenuous at best. Even in Jéioosh’s comment above, the word “printer’s” is using the curly apostrophe when not quotation punctuation. It is unrealistic to expect people to differentiate between one kind of apostrophe in English and another in Tlingit when they see them as variations of the same thing, especially in bilingual text. I fully agree that, for languages which use the curly apostrophe, there can be some confusion with closing single quotes – which in North American usage are rare anyway. In any case, we survive in English with sentences like “That car is my parents’” (Double quote style) or ‘That car is my parents’’ (Single quote style).  Why not use «Guillemets»? Languagegeek 02:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
The result of the debate was Move.  —Wknight94 (talk) 18:30, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gwich’in Apostrophe 

message: :Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
*Support as above. Evertype 19:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The Gwich'in have had a new (female) grand chief for some time and the image of Clarence Alexander is quite outdated. The current Grand Chief is Bobbie Jo Greenland Morgan, who should be appropriately recognized.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.33.10.155 (talk) 04:04, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change image 

message: Perhaps after 14 years we could open the apostrophe discussion. The support for U+02BC is now more widespread, as are keyboards with the right letter. There are different technical issues about this, but one of them is described here. - Francis Tyers · 22:20, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Several years late to this conversation. I will be heading up to Gwich'in territory this winter and can ask them which is more preferred. OhanaUnitedTalk page 20:31, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have spoken to the Gwich'ins on this matter (full disclaimer, the conversation was with the Gwich'ins in Northwest Territories and may not represent the views of Alaskan Gwich'ins or Yukon Gwich'ins). While they appreciate the nuisance around using the U+02BC "right" apostrophe, they understand that the pragmatic approach and ease of using the regular apostrophe when it comes to typing on a computer keyboard. OhanaUnitedTalk page 18:09, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apostrophe discussion again