Capitalization and formatting of Indigenous terms
Publication date: April 8, 2025On this page
- Capitalizing Indigenous terms
- Indigenous People or Peoples?
- Italics and quotation marks
- Typography and BC Sans font
Capitalizing Indigenous terms
The 'I' in Indigenous must always be capitalized. While there is no official consensus on when to capitalize certain terms, it is a sign of respect to capitalize terms such as: Indigenous identities, Indigenous governments, and spiritual and social organizations. It is also recommended for Peoples to be capitalized, following the United Nations current practice.
Capitalizing Indigenous terms is a sign of respect for the identities, governments, institutions and collective rights that have been historically considered illegitimate. We recognize part of reconciliation is the recognition and respect of these terms.
Capitalize:
- Indigenous identities
- Indigenous governmental, social, spiritual, and religious institutions
- Indigenous collective rights
Some examples of these terms may include, but are not limited to:
- Aboriginal
- Chief
- Clan
- Elder
- First Nations
- Grand Chief
- Healers
- Guardians
- Hereditary Chief
- Indigenous
- Inuk/Inuit
- Knowledge Keepers
- Matriarch
- Métis
- Nation
- Oral Tradition
- Sweatlodge
- Status Indian (under the Indian Act)
- Survivor
- Treaty 8 Rights
- Section 35 Rights
For more guidance on capitalization, refer to Dr. Gregory Younging’s Elements of Indigenous Style.
Treaties
When mentioning a specific treaty, the "T" is capitalized. Also, many people prefer to capitalize the "R" when referring to specific rights. Sometimes "Rights" might be seen with a lower case "r" because capitalizing it is not consistent with the Canadian Press (CP) style guide at this time.
Indigenous People or Peoples?
The use of the "’s’" for Indigenous Peoples denotes collectives of self-governing people who are the descendants of the original inhabitants of these lands prior to colonization. For example, the Indigenous Peoples of Canada are the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. This is recognized by United Nation members (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007), Canada (Section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982) and British Columbia (UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, 2019).
For example, you would write, "There are many court cases which deal with Section 35 Rights of Indigenous Peoples."
People without an "s" and without a capital "p" denotes a general group of Indigenous people.
For example, you would write, "I just met some Indigenous people at an Elders luncheon."
Important reminder, Inuit means "people" in Inuktitut. Avoid saying "Inuit people" as it technically means "people people". Likewise, research the meaning of the names of Indigenous Nations prior to using them, as the Nation's name may or may not also mean "people."
Italics and quotation marks
Indigenous place names or terms from an Indigenous language must not be italicized or put in quotation marks.
Typography and BC Sans font
BC Sans is the standard font for B.C. government digital services and the Province’s content management system, CMS Lite. This font supports Indigenous languages in British Columbia. It was developed in 2019 in collaboration with a Kanienʼkehá꞉ka linguist and font expert and First Voices.