60 Indigenous languages,
Canada’s original voices, are struggling to survive with each having as few as a half-dozen native speakers left.
Many words in the Cree language are buried under the cultural rubble of colonization, smothered by residential schools, where children weren’t allowed to speak their native tongue.
Ed Lavallee-Meequaan can fluently speak Cree — one of the country’s most widely-spoken Indigenous languages, along with Ojibway, and Innu/Montagnais. In fact, Cree is his first language. But he’s noticed that many fluent speakers are older and few young people speak it.
Now 77, he lives in Edmonton, where he can use Cree more often as there is a small community of people who grew up with it as their first language and love speaking it.
“When I lived in other Canadian cities, I didn’t find too many good Cree speakers,” he said.
Born in 1940, he grew up on the Sturgeon Lake First Nation reserve in central Saskatchewan but went on to travel across Canada throughout his life.
“That language should be declared an official language ... (and) be treated by the government pouring a lot of money into Cree immersion in all the schools in the country,” he said. “That would be one of my dreams.”
Preserving and revitalizing Indigenous languages was one of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. In December 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the government would work with Indigenous communities to develop an Indigenous Languages Act.
Consultations began in June 2017 between the federal government and advocacy groups the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Métis Nation. By February, the federal government started talking to Indigenous leaders, organizations and selfgoverning nations across Canada to gather more ideas for what should be included in the legislation. Consultations are expected to wrap up by the end of the summer, and the legislation is expected to be tabled in the fall sitting of Parliament. It’s a race against time for the federal government, since some of the Canada’s 60 Indigenous languages have as few as a half dozen native speakers left.
Khelsilem, who goes by one name, is one of about two dozen Squamish speakers left on the west coast of British Columbia. A Vancouver resident, he is the program director of arts and education organization Kwi Awt Stelmexw, and a councillor for the Squamish Nation. He learned Squamish as a second language from a mentor and now teaches it to people in an immersion program. He estimates there are just five native Squamish speakers left in the province. He says Indigenous languages in Canada are “regarded as less than the value that is placed on English and French,” and parents don’t have the right to educate their children in their native tongue.
“I think it speaks to the colonial roots in Canada as an English and French country and not as a country that respects Indigenous rights.”
Khelsilem doesn’t think it’s feasible to give all Indigenous languages official status in Canada, a possibility most people interviewed for this story mentioned, but details are scarce on what’s going to be in the legislation. The sheer number of Indigenous languages and dialects makes legislation a challenge. Estimates on the number of speakers have been questioned, some languages are more robust and spoken by more people than others, and even the number of languages has been debated.
While Statistics Canada counted a little more than 2,000 native Cree speakers in Edmonton in 2016, Reuben Quinn, who teaches a dialect called Nehiyaw at the city’s Centre for Race and Culture, believes the number is much lower. Quinn said Nehiyaw, decimated by the bans on Indigenous languages at residential schools, has changed so much it will be a challenge to agree on what words are part of the original language and which are later additions, let alone to revive it.
“Some people know how to say simple little words, and they’re often wrong,” he said.
He called it linguicide, and blamed a lack of trained teachers within an educational framework and lack of funding for language programs. The Nehiyaw word for “how” has now changed to mean “hello” over time, for example. Without authorities on how to use the language, these changes become part of the vernacular.
“They’ll learn a word and they’ll use it in all contexts, but that’s not how, of course, a language works. Each word has to be contextualized,” Quinn said.
Quinn worries that the Indigenous Languages Act will rely on Stats Canada numbers for its implementation. He says this presents issues around funding since it could skew perceptions, such as the health of the Cree language in comparison with other languages.
“I think what Canada tries to do, in order to seem politically correct, is to offer statistics that are not all together accurate.”
Before first contact with colonizers, the Nehiyaw language had an estimated 600,000 words. Through his own independent research, Quinn estimates it has 15,000 now and bringing it back would require tons of funding. “We Nehiyaw speakers are losing a syllable per generation, so it’s deteriorating as far as the language is concerned,” said Quinn.
Funding for the small Cree language program he teaches is dwindling with each passing year, and he said it is crucial the legislation is passed immediately to have any chance at saving Indigenous languages, including Cree. While Quinn supports including Cree as an official language, Khelsilem doesn’t think the designation would help Squamish speakers.
“The problem with declaring Indigenous languages official languages is that it creates a whole bunch of requirements for Indigenous languages that are actually not that useful.”