Study evaluates new model for reviving endangered languages (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

February 2005 · Vol 31 · No 2
The Ring is published at the University of Victoria

Study evaluates new model for reviving endangered languages
by Lynda Hills

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McIvor
http://ring.uvic.ca/05feb03/features/language.html

Saving a dying language is no easy task, but two First Nations 
communities in B.C. have created a model to do just that.

Called "language nests," the programs are based on a Maori language 
revival initiative from New Zealand. The term refers to childcare 
programs for pre-school children taught exclusively in a heritage 
language.

For her master's thesis, UVic child and youth care graduate student 
Onowa McIvor chose to study Lil'wat and Secwepemc language nests to 
inspire other First Nations communities looking for ways to revive 
their languages.

Of the approximately 50 indigenous languages in Canada, over half of 
them are in B.C. According to language theorists, only three are 
expected to survive Canada-wide: Cree, Ojibwa and Inuktitut. None of 
these is historically rooted in B.C.

"We know that language and culture are inextricably linked," McIvor 
says. "If the youngest members of a community are not learning the 
language then the language will die."

McIvor examined each of the Lil'wat and Secwepemc community's language 
revival stories, the resources they used, how they kept the program 
going and how they overcame barriers. Her passion to protect languages 
comes from personal experience; it took just one generation for her 
family to lose their aboriginal language.

"My grandparents spoke Swampy Cree but grew up in the era of 
assimilation. They were told that maintaining their language would 
hinder their children's future," she says. "Consequently, they were 
fluent Cree speakers but never spoke it to their children, a story all 
too common in Canadian aboriginal history.

McIvor discovered that one of the main barriers to language revival is 
a lack of government support. As the Ministry of Health licenses most 
childcare programs in B.C., workers must have early childhood educator 
certification (ECE). Through ECE certification, childcare programs are 
eligible for subsidies and other types of funding, such as capital-cost 
start up money. But language nests don't quite fit the mold of other 
childcare programs.

"This doesn't mean they are a less-quality program, they're just 
different," she says. "Because you need traditional language speakers 
to be the main caregivers, those people wouldn't necessarily have 
ECE-certified training."

In the Secwepemc community, for example, there are two kinds of people 
working in the language nests: elders who are traditional speakers and 
"middle-generation" women with education degrees. However, because they 
don't have ECE certificates, the program is not eligible for funding.

"It's quite ridiculous to think about sending either elders or those 
with bachelor degrees back for a one-year college course to teach them 
how to raise children," McIvor says. "As one community participant put 
it, ?We have been raising our children for thousands of years. We don't 
need anyone to tell us how to do it.'"

McIvor believes that, despite funding challenges and even resistance 
within their own communities, the Lil'wat and Secwepemc nations offer 
inspiration and hope to other indigenous communities in Canada who want 
to save their languages.
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