Cover Story: Taking Control of Native Languages

The situation of Native languages in Canada today is very much like that of Native American languages in the United States. Most are at risk of disappearing, especially those which were spoken only by small groups of people and those where speakers had a great deal of contact with non-Native peoples. But some are still doing very well.

In Canada, the terms ‘Native’, ‘First Nations’ and ‘Aboriginal’ are used to talk about Native Canadians and their languages; Aboriginal will mostly be used here. Many of the Aboriginal languages in Canada are also spoken across the border, for example, Mohawk (Ontario, Quebec and New York) and some Siouian languages (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota). Also, some languages spoken in Canada have ‘cousins’ in the U.S. such as Oneida, Cayuga, and others in Ontario and Quebec and Cherokee in North Carolina and Oklahoma; also Chipewyan, Slavey, and others in the Northwest Territories in Canada and Navajo and others in Arizona and New Mexico. Because these peoples and their languages have so much in common, there is every reason for sharing and cooperation across the border, especially now that there is so much concern about some languages disappearing. If North American Native languages are lost here, there is no group of speakers anywhere else to renew them.

At the time of first European contact in what is now Canada, there were almost as many Aboriginal people in the region as there are today. Mistreatment, often brutal and the effects of European diseases cut the population to almost one-tenth in the 1700s and 1800s, but these numbers have bounced back. There were about 470,000 people who identified themselves as having only Aboriginal background on the 1991 census, or almost 2% of the Canadian population. Another 500,000 people indicated Aboriginal plus other origins.

Linguists assume that Aboriginal peoples in Canadian territory spoke about 450 languages and dialects in 11 language families before the Europeans came; now there are about 60 Aboriginal languages in Canada in the same 11 language families (Algonquian, Iroquoian, Athapaskan, Siouan, Tsimshian, Haidan, Kootenian, Salishan, Tlingit, Wakashan, and Inuktitut). Some of these languages historically and at present (have) had large numbers of speakers while others have not.
Various factors have acted to reduce the numbers of speakers of some languages more than others; indeed, some of these languages are no longer spoken. Foster, in 1982, projected a picture of the health of the Aboriginal languages of Canada based on the numbers of speakers, calling those with less than 100 speakers "extremely endangered" and those with more than 5,000 speakers as having "an excellent chance of survival" with several categories in between. Only Inuktitut, Cree, and Ojibwa had more than 5,000 speakers according to his figures.

In 1986 I did an analysis (with Beaujot) of census language data and other variables for people of Aboriginal background. The most dramatic figures in the study came from a comparison of native Aboriginal language speakers in the censuses of 1951 to 1981. In 1951, 87.4% of the Aboriginal population had an Aboriginal language as a mother tongue whereas in 1981 it was 29.3%. In 1991, Statistics Canada conducted a special survey of people who reported Aboriginal identity. When asked if they could read or write an Aboriginal language, 13% of the adults (aged 15 or over) said they could read in one and 9% said that they could write in one.

It seems to be a powerful Canadian myth that Aboriginal people and their languages are ‘up north and out west’ but not ‘here.’ Aboriginal people are remarkably evenly distributed across the country in urban and rural areas and on reserves. We found that Aboriginal languages were maintained the most among people who live in isolated, small communities and who tend not to change their place of residence. Historical length of contact with non-Aboriginal people does not seem to be a strong factor; for example, Nova Scotia shows higher Aboriginal language maintenance levels than does the Yukon. Aboriginal language/English bilingualism is most common in the Atlantic provinces whereas Aboriginal language monolingualism is more common in northern areas. It is expected that future statistics will begin to show the effects of the extension of television into the north and of higher levels of schooling.

Aboriginal students are scattered across the country, so it is hard for political advocates of special provisions for Aboriginal education and for teachers of Aboriginal students to cooperate. Also, Aboriginal language maintenance varies greatly, making it difficult for advocates for and educators of Aboriginal education to develop comprehensive approaches to language in Aboriginal education.

In 1972, a document called Indian Control of Indian Education was issued by the National Indian Brotherhood, at that time the national body speaking for Aboriginal issues. This document insists that Aboriginal parents must have control over and responsibility for the education of their children. It says that Aboriginal children should be educated in such a way as to enhance their self-esteem as Aboriginal people as well as to develop their ability to make a good living in Canadian society. It goes on to reinforce the need for Aboriginal children to get a good grounding in their ancestral language as a central factor in their identity development.

A lot of things have happened since that pivotal time in Aboriginal education policy. With respect to language, federal, provincial, and band controlled schools slowly began to offer Aboriginal languages as subjects of instruction. Three jurisdictions have begun to offer the primary grades through the medium of the local Aboriginal language because the children speak it. In other areas, experiments in Aboriginal language immersion programs for children who speak only English have been set up.

Training for teachers of Aboriginal languages is in place across the country. Most bands are in the process of taking over control of the education in their communities. Education advisory committees, once just a rubber stamp, are gaining more control in at least some areas. However, a number of isolated schools can not provide for high school education on reserves, so that children on remote reserves must leave home to attend high school in towns. Also, many Aboriginal children are attending provincial schools where they are very much in the minority and their needs are not a priority. The main point in this situation is that, while many good programs for Aboriginal languages are developing, the administration of Aboriginal education is so fragmented by geography and administration that coordination and cooperation is virtually impossible.