Phonological system of Mitchif ======>some CJ words

[Mike Cleven]

David Lewis wrote:
>
> At 01:11 PM 01/24/2000 -0800, you wrote:
>
> >David Lewis wrote:
> > >
> > > At 07:11 PM 01/23/2000 -0800, you wrote:
> > > >  Mitchif was never that widely spoken across
> > > >the Metis community as French was;
> > >
> > > I'm not sure this statement can be substantiated  in all Indian
> > > communities. My friends at Turtle Mountain maintain that they primarily
> > > spoke Michif or English, not French.
> >
> >I wasn't saying that this was the norm in all Indian communities, or in
> >all Metis communities, more specifically.  I was speaking numerically
> >across the board, and more specifically of the historic French-based
> >Metis nation of the Canadian Prairies and the Canadian Shield.
>
> It is problematic the group all Indians or Metis in one category and say
> "across the board." This is a Federal practice which has served to define
> and divide Indian people everywhere. Across the board, more Indians live in
> cities than on reservations, but it cannot be said that even though they
> may have equivalent characteristics, they are usually not of the same
> cultural context and have much different interests, but are nevertheless
> Indian. Certain pockets of Indian people have maintained native language
> use, like Grand Ronde, like small native communities everywhere. That's why
> it is so hard to equal language with numbers, because there is so much
> variation in culture. If we were generally speaking of all Indian people,
> the majority speak Spanish!
>
I'm not sure you're clear again about my reference to "across the
board"; I'm speaking of Canadian Metis, where the overriding French fact
is a truism and a historic and still-present reality.  And in this sense
I'm speaking not of the government-mandated "all halfbreeds" (if you'll
pardon the term) newer legal definition of Metis, which has overridden
the historic Metis community, which as I said in my other post have
mixed feelings about this situation.  But I was speaking _specifically_
about the historic Metis community, which is not government defined but
is in fact self-defined, and mutually defined with their native
neighbours.  And in the context of this very large (and specific)
community there IS a generalization that can be made, and that they make
themselves.  By the way, nowhere in what I was mentioning about the
Metis did I EVER make a generalization about "all Indians", as you
suggested I had in one of your responses.  I don't make those kinds of
generalizations and kind of don't like it when someone suggests/accuses
that I _do_ think that way, which I don't.  In the case of the Canadian
Metis, I suspect I know a fair bit more about them than you credit me
for and that in this one case _at_least_ I do happen to know what I'm
talking about, incorrectly interested non-native kibbutzer or not.

Actually, in deconstructing your response to me above, you shift gears
directly from the Metis to Indian, as if they were the same thing -
which according to Canadian Metis (and Canadian Indians) they're not.
Y'see, you're using an example that has to do with Indian communities in
a completely different environment from the Prairie Metis I was actually
talking about; applying a model that itself seeks to generalize the
Metis as if supposed misrepresentations of them were typical of what was
said about Indians.  But sorry, nix, no cigar - I'm talking about a
clearly-defined historic community, not any kind of vague generalization
about people of mixed native-non-native inheritance.  That I've said
this a few times and you still seem to think I'm "making generalizations
about Indians" - this causes me to wonder if you're listening/reading at
all, or if you've ever read anything on the history of the Metis in
Canada yourself.  Not to take an accusatory tone, mind you, but it's not
as if I've not been challenged around here of late myself.

It's ironic really, kind of an extension of the negative reaction I got
to my inquiries about the Stuwix; I'm actually speaking from an informed
position and being accused of ignorance/instensitivity/generalization by
people who didn't actually understand what I was talking about or why
and generally wind up counter-accusing me of things I didn't say.  Even
when I clarify who I was talking about, in the case of the Metis, you
keep on using the same term with in your own pan-"Indian"
generalization/context.  My point about the Canadian Metis is not a
generalization, and was never intended as one; yet you have been
behaving as if this is where I'm coming from.  Sigh.

Oh, I can hear it already - these kind of comments prove how insensitive
I am, how much my opinion is culturally-ignorant and ill-informed, all
with the subtext that it's not appropriate for non-natives to have any
kind of opinion or information on "Indian" subjects at all.  I always
hope for dialogue and communication and the development of understanding
and shared culture, but all too often there's ill-considered suspicion
and knee-jerk reactions and accusations of "generalization" and ethnic
bias; why attack someone who's friendly to native culture?  Well,
obviously I must not be the only one around here with ethnic biases and
blinkered world=views......

Guess I'll do some research on Metis language usage in Canada and get
back to you, and on the history of the distribution of Mitchif users vs.
French users in that community.  If I'm wrong and Mitchif was more
current of course I'll retract the claim, if that's what it was, even
though I doubt you'll still grant me the definition of the Prairie Metis
as separate from the larger definition of Metis you're supposing I'm
speaking from; French is such a historic part of the cultural identity
of Canadian Metis that it's unquestioned on this side of the border;
indeed it's expected; Mitchif, at least in this era if not in the 19th
Century, is a lot rarer.  Thankfully, the Metis don't take as much
offence when someone starts poking around asking about their history and
culture as certain other people obviously do.....they actually
appreciate it, in fact......

In speaking/writing with my Metis contacts, by the way, they are very
interested in the role of their ancestors/cousins in the formation of
the Jargon, and also in the notion that non-status and legal-Metis
communities in BC probably more likely used Jargon than they would have
one of the traditional languages.  Partly for that reason, the
provincial Metis organization in BC is more likely than any of the
native bands in BC to take an interst in the Jargon, as neither Mitchif
nor French were important in the mixed-native population here other than
among the company's furtraders in the older days....



> >  Isn't
> >Turtle Mountain Mitchif a different "flavour" of Mitchif from
> >Manitoba/Saskatchewan Metis; one being Ojibway based, the other Cree?  I
> >think as someone else pointed out here in another discussion long ago
> >some American Metis are Protestants, which Canadian ones almost never
> >are.  The French legacy within the Canadian Metis is a clear historic
> >fact, and IIRC during constitutional hearings which followed various
> >native crises ten years ago spokesmen for the Metis addressed the
> >hearings in both French and English, then read a statement in Mitchif,
> >which they desired to have enshrined as a national language, or at least
> >some kind of protected status.  But IIRC they were quite clear that
> >French was more historically widely spoken within their community;
> >Mitchif might have become more current in a West where Riel and Dumont
> >had been victorious, but French was much more identifiably the daily
> >language of the Metis culture of the pre-Canadian West than Mitchif; it
> >varied from community to community _of_course_, and some Metis
> >communities of French linguistic heritage probably use English
> >nowadays.  Did the Turtle Mountain people ever speak French, or have
> >anything to do with the French Metis culture to the north?
>
> Of course!, Indian communities, while hampered by the international
> borders, do not necessarily respect them. For example the Mohawk Rez is on
> both sides. French was probably spoken, but I am not sure how much. But
> they have cross-border relationships.

Turtle Mountain?  Is that the bunch out in Minnesota or ND?