Chief Alex Thomas, while living by traditional hunting and fishing, was the first Nuu--chah-nulth person to write down and translate texts on the culture and history of his people. Working as translator for his grandfather, a field consultant of Edward Sapir 1910-14, Alex learned to write the standard alphabet developed by Sapir and his teacher Franz Boas. From 1914 on he gave his people a literature of thousands of pages, still today only partly published, as in E. Sapir and M. Swadesh, Nootka Texts (1939) and Native Accounts of Nootka Ethnography (1955), and in A. Thomas and E. Arima, t'a:t'a:qsapa. A Practical Orthography for Nootka (1970).
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- MLA 8TH EDITION
- Wright, Roy. "Alexander Thomas". The Canadian Encyclopedia, 16 December 2013, Historica Canada. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/alexander-thomas. Accessed 26 April 2024.
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- APA 6TH EDITION
- Wright, R. (2013). Alexander Thomas. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/alexander-thomas
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- CHICAGO 17TH EDITION
- Wright, Roy. "Alexander Thomas." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published February 04, 2008; Last Edited December 16, 2013.
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- TURABIAN 8TH EDITION
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, s.v. "Alexander Thomas," by Roy Wright, Accessed April 26, 2024, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/alexander-thomas
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Alexander Thomas
Article by Roy Wright
Published Online February 4, 2008
Last Edited December 16, 2013
Alexander Thomas, writer, Indigenous leader (born on 25 December 1891 in Port Alberni, BC; died there on 28 July 1971).