Sound shifts; Michif as Metis language

[Mike Cleven]

At 10:01 AM 2/3/99 +0100, Henry Kammler wrote:
>Mike Cleven schrieb:
>
>> The Canadian Metis organizations are pretty specific about it being THE
>> Metis language.  At least the Prairie organizations anyway, and maybe those
>> in northern Ontario.  "Metis" in BC has a broader meaning that's not as
>> tied up with "traditional Metis culture".  Metis French is another
>> matter.....and different from Saskais or Franco-Manitobaine......
>
>Now that's pretty interesting. As far as I know, Michif proper (the one we
>linguists love for being one of the rare cases of a "mixed" language) is only
>spoken by several thousand people in Montana / southern Sask. and Alberta,
whereas
>many other Métis communities are in fact multilingual (French - Cree -
English,
>with interferences of course which lead to local designations for the
respective
>variants).

Somewhere during the exhaustive hearings on constitutional and aboriginal
issues that followed in the wake of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown
fiascos (and the Oka Crisis) one of the national Metis associations came
forward and spoke in Michif for their introduction, then introduced the
language as their own, by way of pointing out that _their_ issues (like
native ones) were also not yet on the constitutional table (Quebec has
always claimed that it should get its own way first, then everyone else can
fight over what's left).  During this speech, and in follow-ups, it was
explained that Michif might readily have become the main language of
"Nord-Ouest", Louis Riel's dream of a Metis Republic on the Prairies.  As
such, it would have been spoken far beyond the communities in Montana and
southern SK and AB where it survives today.  Its entrenchment as an
official language would have furthered its use, and encouraged those people
in Manitoba and Ontario and elsewhere who DID speak it to continue doing
so......