This paper reflects the importance of Cree communities retaining their language. The Canadian Government recognizes there are endangered native languages and need to be protected. Languages are important to Indigenous communities because they represent their culture, teachings, songs, and stories. These protocols are sacred to their ceremonial value, and this paper will explain the importance of maintaining the Cree language in the presence of the dominant English cultural threat.
The Cree people are currently the most prominent Native American people in Canada. Its ancestral territories are located in Alberta’s circumpolar and lowland regions, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario, and capturing part of Quebec. The Cree are divided into geographic and dialectal subgroups, are made up of dozens of distinct Algonquian-speaking tribes, and are closely related to other Native American peoples.
Therefore, throughout their history, they mix with neighboring tribes and immigrants. Canada’s aboriginal population is linguistically divided into 11 language families that are entirely different from each other (Schreyer, 2008). The most common language group is the Algonquian – the dialects of this language are spoken by the Cree Indians; now, approximately 50,000 speakers are fluent in the Cree language.
In pre-contact times, there were no right words in Aboriginal languages to describe environmental phenomena as lifeless since all forms of life were animate back then. Traditional holistic cosmology still places considerable emphasis on the Cree worldview even in the modern era. Canadian Métis are of mixed ethnicity and descendants of Native American women and European colonists who came to Canada from France and later from Britain for research and trade purposes. The need to preserve the mother tongue and learn the country of residence’s language has led to the emergence of bilinguals.
Like many other Native American peoples, the Cree trust in the oral tradition of their history. Elements of this tradition include many creation myths, the content of which varies from tribe to tribe (Bruchac, 2003). In one tale, the progenitors walk through the clouds, see below a green blooming world riddled with rivers and bays, and decide to settle in it. They ask the great spirit to help them come down from heaven, and he makes a bowl of clouds, asks them to sit in it, and carries them to the lower world, but the bowl lands on a tree. The animals run by and do not help, and only the marten climbs the tree and helps the people down from it.
Language is one of the essential categories of culture because it is through language that a person’s worldview is formed and expressed. However, it is also the environment in which people live, which determines their life experience. A fundamental function of language is that it saves culture and transmits it from generation to generation (Cajete, 2017). Because of it, people’s beliefs, their metaphorical teachings are not lost through the years but are preserved by their descendants (Archibald, 2008). That is why language plays such a significant role in forming personality, national character, people, nation.
The principal legislation governing the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Government of Canada has been the 1876 Indian Act and its amendments. The amendments of 1894 provided for the introduction of compulsory schooling for children. Most families were forced to send them to Indian residential schools operated by Catholics. In the lifetime of these schools (until the 1990s), they educated 150,000 Native American children (Pember, 2021). Such institutions did not provide decent living conditions, and the children were often subjected to all kinds of violence. The purpose of these residential schools was assimilation; among their mechanisms was the prohibition of students to use their native languages, which resulted in the loss of several Aboriginal languages.
Individuality is the result of the unique biographical situation of each individual, the unique combination of the assimilated cultural heritage with their own life experience. Moreover, the simpler the structure of a society and the more pronounced its cultural unity, the less pronounced are the meaningful differences between members of the same community (Whitecalf, 1983). A possible way of examining susceptibility to cultural trauma is to refer to the past, through which the experiences that constitute the discourse of trauma for a particular group of society are accentuated (Ciano, 2017). The impact of trauma is the greater the difference between the natural lifestyle and the conditions created by the traumatic events (Youssef et al., 2018).
Therefore, the disappearance of indigenous languages is associated with switching to another language (Veettil et al., 2020). The reasons for the latter are immigration and attitudes towards different languages, which are characteristic of the modern world. The trauma experienced by the Cree people divides them and results in discrimination against native speakers who use the native language.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the number of Cree speakers increased. These most prominent Native American people in Canada continue to fight for aboriginal rights worldwide. The most effective method of language preservation is the provision of preschool, school, and higher education in native languages and the expansion of their practical application. Institutions using the immersion method can serve as an educational example on how to incorporate the Cree language in classrooms. Another direction for the development and preservation of indigenous languages is the development of tourism. There is a growing number of tourist companies that members of the indigenous population own. To attract tourists, they develop special excursion programs in their native language.
In Canada, the number of radio and television programs in aboriginal languages is gradually increasing. Among the recent trends of cultural and linguistic development of Canada’s aboriginal population is the active use of modern technology. Various language communities in social networks are becoming popular among young people. For example, there is the Gwich’in Language Revival Campaign on Facebook for Gwich’in language learners (Scott, 2019). Mobile apps for learning a native language are also widely used. An example of such a modern app is KOBE Learn for learning Cree languages.
The generational trauma is still ongoing into modern times in Canada. Indigenous children were forced to abandon their heritage and homes to gain a new English identity during the residential school era. The Indigenous children were neglected, killed, sexually abused, harassed and forgotten. Those who survived and graduated were mentally scarred and destroyed any spiritual morals, which may lead to suicide or substance abuse. Their offspring were impacted by not learning any heritage traditions or cultural teachings. In addition, they were not raised with proper love and nurture. So, they were the first of generational trauma to neglect themselves and cause indirect violence within communities and families. Today, Indigenous communities are trying to reclaim their identity, and this paper explains why language is essential to achieve that goal.
References
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