Sound shifts; Michif as Metis language

[The McDonald Family]

At 12:26 PM 2/3/1999 -0800, you wrote:
>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......

I recall an article in _L'actualité_ about the Mitchif-speaking community in
Montana. Apparently, Mitchif has been given limited recognition by the
Montana state government.