STƏYWƏTE:N̓ pronunciation
The short answer (confirmed August 2025): stəywəte:n̓ is pronounced "sty-wa-tan" and means "the strength of the west wind" — symbolizing storms, cleansing, and new beginnings. The name was gifted to Point Grey Secondary School by the Musqueam community in a naming ceremony on May 20, 1998. See the official explanation below.
My son started going to Point Grey stəywəte:n̓ Secondary School, but I didn't know how to pronounce it so I asked the school on Twitter but never got a response.
Then I decided to ask on Quora, which did help me find an approximate pronunciation of it as well as some information about which Canadian First Nation's word it is:
- How do you pronounce Point Grey stəywəte:n̓ Secondary School?
- ポイントグレイ高校「Point Grey stəywəte:n̓ Secondary School」の英語の発音はなんですか？
It seems that the Musqueam language (Hul'q'umi'num' aka hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓) uses NAPA, which is closely related with IPA.
Still, I feel like the placement of that word in the title without an explanation of it causes confusion. I think it was probably done in the spirit of respect, however by putting it there without providing more information, I think it creates more confusion and therefore doesn't bring about the desired outcome. I hope the school will reevaluate how it brands itself, and provides more details on what it is doing to be respectful to indigenous cultures than just creating confusion and mystique around them.
On a related note, I had difficulty hunting for my tweet with x.com/search?q=stəywəte:n̓ — dropping the final character (x.com/search?q=stəywəte:) does a little better. I believe it is the colon in the tweets which throws the search index off. Perhaps they might use the IPA long-vowel character ː to write stəywəteːn̓, so search indexes would realize it's human language and not punctuation.
Video
I've recorded a video where I go into more detail:
Video transcript (auto-generated captions, lightly cleaned)
my best approximation at the pronunciation of this word would be stəywəte:n̓
my son started to go to Point Grey secondary school and it has a Musqueam name or word in the third part of the name this pronunciation I still haven't really totally ascertained and um so I I asked the school uh over Twitter and I never got a response um and so then I decided to ask uh in Quora and I also didn't get a response there so then now my Quora profile is set up to uh that always prompts me uh to translate my question if I want to because I'm also a member of Japanese Quora and so I asked in Japanese as well and actually I got a pretty thought out response from a English Professor there and um you know she kind of even here kind of gives a rough you know um sort of anglicized um pronunciation guide to maybe stowaten / stowatin as a possible pronunciation for it and then she also provides a link to this excellent website on Musqueam pronunciations and um so basically um if we just kind of look at the name again on the website so they write it in uppercase in the title but then in the HTML title it's kind of written in lower case up here you can see and so um I'm assuming that they the case letters the presentation doesn't change whether it's uppercase or lowercase um so uh sort of what I came to understand from uh the uh a little bit of research is that the writing system used to display the Musqueam language is based off of a pronunciation guide called NAPA which is similar very similar to IPA and um
so um I think that the the part that probably would confuse English speakers the most are the vowels so with that said I figured I'd just go into the consonants first I I and literally assume that s and t uh R and W are the same as they are in English now I didn't quite sure wasn't quite sure what this little Mark over the end was so when we go kind of into um the uh the guide here on the consonants um using NAPA um I mean I I actually don't see uh there there's another in here with a slightly different symbol that says it's a nasal n and I can kind of imagine that like French has the the nasal n sounds um but then actually on this other pronunciation guide there's a few examples with that exact symbol here actually no it's not apparent if it is the exact symbol or not um so even Chrome it doesn't so differentiate between n with the accent and without the accent but it kind of looks like the same one so here this word for child if we listen to it mána um and yeah I mean I don't even really hear the nasal just kind of sounds like standard end to me and then in the word for humpback hóne Okay so yeah um just sounds like a standard end to me
so then the next um ones are the vowels and so well what is upside down e well I'm very familiar with upside down it's probably the most common sound in English actually it's it's um uh it's just like an uh sound and basically um I mean here um uh so if we kind of just look at some of these um vowels this my understanding of the difference between IPA and NAPA is more around the consonants than the vowels I think that these vowels are pretty much well the same as they are in IPA So based on that assumption I'm going to say that I think that this is ah and this is ah and this is e two variations I'm probably not getting it exactly right this is like e like Mitten and this is e um and then uh you know over here in the back of the mouth we have like uh and then maybe uh and then oh and then ah ah so this is kind of like a Canadian pronunciation for like God uh uh and this is like the American pronunciation of God God anything like that and um but then right in the middle of this in English um well particularly Canadian English like whatever syllable doesn't take the stress it's about sound kind of just becomes very de-stressed and very kind of soft and then that's where you kind of get this this upside down e sound a a sound like butter well butter but the the uh sound and butter might be this here uh but uh another example would be um like even the e in between it's it's so in fact it's almost like a little placeholder between the B and the T between between it's a very you can barely even hear really a vowel sound in that word and so that kind of in between uh I would I would equate with this upside down e here um but uh like even our our um English professor in Japan you know she kind of gives it an uh like I'm assuming this is an uh sound here um and so yeah that's how I um assume uh this to be is a sta STA
and then the why to be well actually that's a good question I don't I was making an assumption that it was like an e uh but maybe it's not an e let's take a look and see if we can find some examples of of uh the Y used um well it sounds like an e hi to me so it does sound like it is being used as an e sound there how about us when it starts the is it like a yellow yeah very much like yellow it says it says it right here so yeah yeah it is like a consonant the making of a consonant of the e sound or like the yeah sound in in in English like yellow um are there any are there any more oh here so yeah there's um so okay so anyway yeah it I think we can just assume that that um you know it would be almost like stay except for Stay Stay Stay Stay um and then
and then again here in the second uh part of it uh what what and then uh the E is probably an F sound let's confirm that here um and for the Musqueam word for a clock work what actually that's almost a wedge I can't I'm not going to focus a lot on that but I'm just going to say that this definitely was like you know Weck or a wet type of a a vowel sound so it's it's a it's an e sound
and um then the question about the the colon well um I think what it's really related to is in IPA there's this symbol here um uh which is basically used for um uh making an extra long sound so um 10 because we become teːn and this is I think hard for North Americans because we don't really elongate uh vowels like that except for the E and u sounds um so say for instance in the word um you know save we have a diphthong a well it's like the literally the first letter in our alphabet whereas if you hear a Scottish person say save they'll say it like save and so they just take the e sound and then they elongate it and so I'm assuming that that's what um this pronunciation is it's a 10 sound
and so uh my best approximation at the pronunciation of this word would be uh staiwaten stay-wa-ten stay-wa-ten where you have kind of um your diphthong which is very similar to stay here but like more like a study what and this is kind of a short sound what what what and then and so stay-wa-ten stay-wa-ten. that's that's my best pronunciation that's my best approximation um of what the pronunciation might be and I don't know if if I'm right or not but um what I I don't like is uh the the mystery around it um I don't think that it uh helps our kids understand its meaning or significance in any way
it reminds me of this YouTube video I watched recently uh this discussing the Science Education and talking about the wrong way of teaching science and the wrong way of teaching science is introducing the terminology first so for instance saying okay there's this concept called friction and then and then and then going to the explanation of what friction is because what that does to the the child's brain is it kind of make creates this compartment where you know this where there's this meaningless word where they you know it's almost have to apply like you know magical or mystical thinking around what could it possibly be type of thing before that they can get to the actual learning uh of what that con what that means and that the um the correct way to teach science is to say um you know why is it that when you kind of take one piece of wood and then you know or like if you took a wooden block and then you pushed it along a desk why would it stop well the reason why is because you know each piece of wood has like little little bumps in it and when those when the little bumps on the wooden block bump it bump into the little bumps on the on the table the um they slow the block down uh creating heat as they do and they event and eventually causes the block to stop that's why people used to be able to create Fire by say rubbing two pieces of wood together because they would get those little bumps to keep bumping into each other create more and more heat eventually they'd create enough heat that it would start to smoke and smolder and eventually catch on fire and that process obviously those little bumps bumping into each other and creating heat there's actually a word for it and that word is called friction and where you ex by explaining the concept first the child already imagines that they probably could quickly think of you know brakes on their bicycle and other ways in which they are familiar already familiar with the concept of friction and so they're primed to to be uh instructed about the word for um uh friction
and I think that um in the same way if you're going to introduce a new word into the Lexicon of British Columbians you need to First educate them on what the concept what is uh stəywəte:n̓ was it I mean is it a type of animal that you know frequented this area or is it something related with weather or is it something related with health or personal relations what is it that um
I mean I I lived in Japan for 12 years and I'm familiar with the fact that there are many concepts for which there are words in Japanese that there aren't in English and so if that's one of these cases that it can be explained and understood accordingly it's very possible that there's a concept here that will enrich the lives of people when they come to understand it and then and then when they say yes and there's a convenient word for it it is then it'll be like bam great forward I know exactly what this word is used for and when to use it and my life is better and more enriched because of it
and I feel like uh yeah the school needs to step it up and reverse the way that they introduce elements of Musqueam culture and language into our society if they really want to do our kids a service here
Update: August 2025
After three years of uncertainty, the school finally provided an official explanation in its Community Newsletter (dated August 22, 2025), which was emailed to families. The newsletter states that:
- The name is pronounced "sty-wa-tan" (a simplified pronunciation to help anglophone students).
- It means "the strength of the west wind," symbolizing storms, cleansing, and new beginnings.
- The name was gifted by the Musqueam community in a naming ceremony held on May 20, 1998.
Common misspellings: staywaten, stywaten