Inuit talk the talk (fwd)

[Phil CashCash]

Inuit talk the talk

By OLIVER MOORE
Globe and Mail Update
Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2003
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030924.wlang0924/BNStory/National/

Inuktitut remains widely understood in Canada's North, a new report
finds. Statistics Canada researchers found that 90 per cent of all
off-reserve Inuit say that they can speak or understand Inuktitut.

After centuries of colonization and assimilation, Inuktitut is the only
major native language group to be flourishing off the reserve in
Canada. It is the only substantial positive amid a report chock full of
bleak news about the low use of aboriginal languages.

The report's authors analyzed the data of the 2001 Aboriginal Peoples
Survey, crunching the numbers to draw conclusions about the entire
off-reserve native population of Canada. They found that, in spite of
evidence that some people are deliberately learning an aboriginal
language later in life, comprehension of these languages is found in
only a small minority of Indians and Métis living off the reserve.

Less than one-third (32 per cent) of off-reserve Indians over the age of
15 said they could speak or understand even a single aboriginal
language.

Less than 15 per cent of adults said their comprehension was either
“very” or “reasonably” good. Among children, less than 15 per cent said
they could speak or understand an aboriginal language.

Métis fared even more poorly. Barely one in six Métis (16 per cent) were
able to speak an aboriginal language, and only 5 per cent said they
knew it well. Comprehension was lower among children than adults, with
only 11 per cent of Métis children saying they knew how to speak an
aboriginal language.

Impressive as they are by comparison to Indians or Métis, the Inuit
success story is diluted somewhat by the diminishing ability of their
young to speak the language well. While 80 per cent of adults say they
can speak their native tongue “very well,” only 63 per cent of those
under the age of 15 said they could speak it “very” or “reasonably”
well.

A clear majority of aboriginal people told researchers that they
recognize the importance of keeping their languages alive.

The same proportion (about 60 per cent) said that it is either very or
somewhat important that their children learn an aboriginal language.
That desire may account for the small but significant group of people
who learn an aboriginal tongue later in life.

The 2001 census showed that, while only 12 per cent had an aboriginal
mother tongue,15 per cent claimed proficiency in an aboriginal
language.