This text is part of the special booklet 90th Acfas Congress
The slogan of the Los Pinos Declaration for the Decade of Indigenous Languages, “Nothing About Us Without Us,” implies that no policy should be decided without the participation of those affected. This is also the motto of the Acfas symposium Indigenous languages : present and futurewhich focuses on those languages that somehow survive the pressure exerted by the dominant languages.
The number of Indigenous people increased by 9.4% between 2016 and 2021, according to Statistics Canada. At the same time, the portion of people who speak an Indigenous language well enough to carry on a conversation fell by 4.3%. Even today, the deleterious effects of assimilationist colonial policies, such as the Indian Act, are suffered. French and English, widely used in school and in the media, also exert pressure on the approximately 70 Aboriginal languages spoken in Canada.
For example, Wendat is being revitalized after falling into disuse in the 19e century. “People are now learning Wendat, it’s going better,” says Yvette Mollen, conference manager and associate professor in the Department of Linguistics and Translation at the University of Montreal (UdeM). However, we note a drop in speakers of all languages in Quebec. The main Aboriginal languages spoken at home are Cree and Inuktitut.
Born in the Innu community of Ekuanitshit, on the North Shore, Yvette Mollen has devoted her career to promoting her mother tongue, Innu. Elementary school teacher, director of the Language and Culture sector of the Tshakapesh Institute, then university professor, she carries within her this desire for transmission. “Innu is a forest language that was used to name trees, rivers and animals,” she explains. Its vocabulary is no longer the same, now that we are in the cities, surrounded by concrete, and we have to adapt. »
Very young, she participated with her parents in the last trips inland, closer to nomadic traditions. His dream would be to be able to take children on such journeys, to relearn fishing and the uses of the forest. Yvette Mollen is delighted to see a resurgence of these teachings today. “There are more and more people and women taking courses in making moccasins, tents or even snowshoe weaving,” she says.
Turn the situation around
According to the professor, it is essential to promote the use of Aboriginal languages at home, as early as possible. Thanks to this, her two daughters and one of her granddaughters speak Innu. “My mother, who went to boarding school and was a nomad, has always been a role model,” says Yvette Mollen. She insisted on passing on the culture and the language to us. She also remembers the stories told by her grandfather, Mathieu Mestokosho, whose stories were the subject of a book by Serge Bouchard.
For almost two years, Yvette Mollen has been developing with her team a game called “Nui innu-aimin”, which means “I want to speak Innu”. “It will allow you to learn the language and the culture, with words related to traditional activities, among others”, specifies the one who wants her game to be able, in the long term, to be developed in other endangered languages.
She would like Quebec, like British Columbia, to be more generous in investments in Aboriginal languages, to put in place adequate infrastructures. Why not, also, found a baccalaureate program in French, in the teaching of Aboriginal languages? “I just turned 58, and I tell myself that I still have time to try to make things happen,” she says with determination.
Access to resources
Marie-Odile Junker, professor at Carleton University, is also taking part in the symposium, where she will present linguistic tools and reference documents. According to her, the transmission of indigenous languages depends on free access to collaborative resources. “The priority is to let the speakers contribute, they are the ones who know their language best,” she says. Then, we work on computer and linguistic support. »
Using a participatory research method, she worked with Algonquian language communities in Quebec (Eastern Cree, Innu, Atikamekw) to develop dictionaries, grammar sheets and many other tools. On its university server space, more than a million words are searched each year.
Maintaining these resources is a challenge for the linguist, who wonders about the sustainability of her work when she retires. She is currently looking for solutions at the provincial and federal level, so that these tools are accessible outside of academia. In Quebec, she imagines a project like FirstVoices, in British Columbia, an online space allowing communities to share and promote language, oral culture and linguistic history.
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the Duty, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of Duty did not take part.