Elders meet to discuss how to revive fading languages

REGINA Throughout the five years she spent in a residential school, Millie Anderson remembers being beaten every time she spoke her Inuktitut language.

As she recalls the memories, she gestures, showing where her hands and head were hit with a ruler.

“When I went to school, I lost it because of getting strapped and getting hit in the head and everything like that,” she said. “That just turned me off so I said, ‘Ok, I’m going to lose it. I’m not talking my language again.’ And that was it.”

When she finally returned to her home in Inuvik, N.W.T., she understood only a little bit of Inuktitut. But her parents still spoke the language, making communication difficult.

“When my mom talked to me my dad had to interpret … saying what she’s saying to me. That was the hardest, you know. Right to this day it hurts right here,” she said, putting her hand over her heart.

Looking back, Anderson wishes she would have kept speaking her language despite the physical pain it brought. “I should’ve kept it, kept going if I got a licking.”

Anderson was one of many Indigenous children who lost their traditional language after attending a residential school.

With her generation largely unable to speak their mother tongue, it was not passed on to the next generation.

Today, fewer people grow up speaking Indigenous languages across Canada, and there is no easy solution to bring these languages back, said Anderson.

Now as an Elder at the First Nations University of Canada, Anderson is taking part in the third annual Elders’ Gathering, held in Regina this week, focusing on Indigenous languages.

Sylvia Obey, of Piapot First Nation, is also an Elder attending the gathering. Her experience in residential school was similar to Anderson’s — although Obey has been able to maintain some of her knowledge of the Cree language.

She’s concerned the younger generation isn’t learning the traditional languages because their parents and grandparents had it stripped away.

“It’s hard for our younger generation to catch on because it’s not spoken at home,” Obey said.

“And when we go home, well, we don’t talk to our grandchildren or our children (in) our language. We have to talk English to them because that’s all they know.”

It’s difficult to get these children interested in learning their Indigenous language when their parents don’t speak it, Obey said. Classes at school are a step in the right direction but if at the end of the day they return to an English-speaking home, it’s less likely to stick.

Obey believes that without learning their traditional language, these children won’t know who they are.

“I’m afraid that our languages are going to be lost because most of our children don’t know how to speak Cree,” she said.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. There might be no Cree one of these days, or Saulteaux or Sioux or Assiniboine and, you know, these are our languages.”

Obey said there are only a few people she can speak Cree with, and she doesn’t have the chance to meet up with them regularly.

Anderson agreed. “I have nobody. I have absolutely nobody. All my relatives, they all talk English, so now I’m really lost, you know, because I can’t talk to anybody and nobody talks to me in our language,” she said.

Bonnie Rockthunder, the main organizer of the Elders’ Gathering, said many Indigenous communities are becoming interested in how they can preserve their languages — and more than 200 people have registered for the event.

Presenters will look at how their communities are tackling language revitalization. They are also welcome to speak their traditional language during the presentations, though Rockthunder said they are encouraged to translate so everyone can understand.

“It’s a beautiful feeling, to hear them speak their words so fluently. Even though you may not understand them, you know, just to sit here and listen to them kind of stirs up something within your spirit. That’s how I always feel,” she said.