Tiawenhk (thank you), onenh (bye), yändeia (very good)… These words that resonated for centuries in the country before disappearing come back to life. North of Quebec, the community of Wendake is trying to restore the Wendat language, which has been extinct for more than a century, to its former glory. Story of a resurrection that is not unanimous.
Canoes, snowshoes and animal skins adorn the walls. In the educational center at the heart of the Wendat community of Wendake, dozens of people have been introduced to the difficult pronunciation of the language of their ancestors.
“It’s more than a curiosity, it’s a need”, articulates Sandrine Masse-Savard. This musician from Wendake would like to compose in Wendat one day. “I can’t do it, I’m not equipped. And I don’t mean to disrespect the language by using it off-key. But it’s progressing! »
To tell the truth, no one is fluent in Wendat. The language fell asleep at the beginning of the last century, submerged by Quebec French. Luckily, there are some fifteen Wendat grammars and dictionaries written by the missionaries of the past. Thanks to this corpus – exceptional for its time – some 2,000 words have been restored and found their way back to modernity.
A few crumbs also remain of the ancestral pronunciation: songs engraved on wax cylinders by anthropologist Marius Barbeau in 1911, which can also be heard on the Canadian Museum of History website.
“It’s our language, the language of our ancestors. If we want it to come back, it’s up to us to roll up our sleeves and make an effort,” encourages Marcel Godbout, Wendat teacher for adults, 111 years later.
A few familiar Wendat words
tongue on the ground
But behind this polished facade hides a muted conflict: a single linguist oversees this entire renaissance, and she is not unanimous.
Because this expert, Megan Lukaniec, does not live in Wendake; rather, she resides in British Columbia. Some of his ancestors come from the Quebec region. She stays there sometimes, but her delays irritate many. “Sometimes it can take three years to have the translation of a word,” confides a professor. Mme Lukaniec did not respond to our multiple interview requests.
On his piece of land on the banks of the Saint-Charles River, Michel Gros-Louis is sorry not to participate in this nascent dialogue. This Wendat phonetics doctoral student has been dismissed from all recent discussions. He does not understand the reasons for his setting aside, he who was one of the first linguists to dust off the language of his ancestors. “I started to take an interest in Wendat when I was 12-13 years old. I suffered enormously that we did not speak our language. It was inside, like a bad identity, ”sighs the self-employed worker.
What concerns him above all is that certain words taught do not correspond to the words he has discovered, and that young people risk learning the wrong language. “I wrote linguistic reports and found several errors, and I didn’t get any feedback on my questions,” he maintains, not always a diplomat.
“To say ‘welcome’, we now say ‘yiheh”, he takes as an example. But one of the words we learn the most and remember in our language is “kwe kwe”. He was everywhere. Our parents said that, our grandparents said that. And suddenly we’re told it’s not “kwe kwe” for “welcome”. When I hear [le mot “yiheh”], I hear the word that means “give me that”. »
This criticism is confirmed by another linguist who has 45 years of experience in the Iroquois languages, John Steckley. “ “Yihe’” is used at the end of a story, not to greet anyone,” he corrects. Gabriel Sagard, in 1632, already testified to the word ” what as a greeting in his classic The great trip to the land of the Hurons.
Another example: the CHSLD “de Wendake” changed its name in September to become the CHSLD Akhiakahratatha’yeh, “where we take care”. Michel Gros-Louis sees grammatical errors there. His doubts are validated by the second independent linguist.
“The problem with linguists is that they don’t all agree. Go see the Mohawks, they don’t agree on how to write their language,” notes Professor Marcel Godbout. “The political position here has been to hire Megan as the lead linguist. The rest of us follow her. It’s like someone hiring an engineer: you trust the engineer. »
“We took a conductor, we left with [elle] and we build with [elle] “, defends Chief Carlo Gros-Louis, responsible for culture and language at the Wendake band council.
However, “it went without saying” that Michel Gros-Louis would be involved, testifies a document from Laval University dated 2007, at the very beginning of the project. “We have to work everyone together, put love and unity in this project”, insists the latter, in the form of a cry from the heart.
Go through youth
Despite everything, the language progresses slowly. The inhabitants greet each other by finding their words of yesteryear. Whether it’s the Awastoki workshop, the Onquata boutique or the Hannenorak bookstore, the businesses in Wendake are adopting names in Wendat. This extinct language has also recently been taught at the Wahta’ primary school, from kindergarten to third grade.
More than the language, the ancestral culture is also reborn from its ashes. The school calendar is modeled on the calendar of the seasons. Hunting has become a school subject. “With the rifle and everything”, confirms the director of the Wahta’ school, Richard Dussault. “When the exam is on the original, it becomes significant. There are young people who had a lot of misery and who are now doing very well! »
“We are still in the infancy of the language,” he concedes, but the level can only increase. “I think if we evolve like that, in sixth grade, [les élèves] will be able to hold a five-minute conversation,” enthuses teacher Sonia Gros-Louis.
Reconstituting a Wendatophone population will no doubt take generations, if it ever succeeds. In the entire history of human languages, only Hebrew has managed to revive after falling dormant.