2nd N.W.T. mother demands traditional name for daughter

A second mother from the Northwest Territories says she had to change the spelling of her daughter's name after thevital statistics office wouldn't allow her to use a glottal stop, part of her traditional language.

Andrea Heron says six years ago, she had to usea hyphen in her daughter's name,Sakaeah, in order to register herbirth.

Sakaeah means "when the sun rises, first peaks, a new day"in South Slavey.

Recently,SheneCatholiqueValpy'sdaughter went a year without a birth certificate because the office wouldn't allow the traditional Chipewyan spelling of her name using a glottal stop.

Heron says she plans to support CatholiqueValpyin the complaint process.

"I would absolutely love to see the changes implemented so the traditional names can be spelled properly and they don't have to be compromised," she said.

"I think it's a part of my daughter's cultural identity and who she is as a personand I think having to compromise that takes away from that for her."

Heron says Dene languages are dying and needto be preserved.

"I found it frustrating that they had the resources to support the French culture and the French [language]but they didn't have the resources to support the Dene[languages] which they acknowledge as an official language of the N.W.T."