Bringing back Blackfoot (fwd link)

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Bringing back Blackfoot
Rachel Ermineskin preserves her language for future generations

Published March 26, 2009  by Jeremy Klaszus in City
Canada

Oki. When Siksika elder Rachel Ermineskin speaks the Blackfoot greeting, there’s
a musicality to it. It’s like a tiny, one-second song. Oki. Hello.

It comes naturally to Ermineskin. She grew up on the Siksika reserve east of
Calgary and has been speaking Siksika Blackfoot — “my language,” she always
says — from childhood. “My parents spoke Blackfoot, and then they went to
school in residential schools,” recalls Ermineskin, 75.

She eventually went to Saint Joseph’s Residential School, where she and the
other students were forbidden to speak their own language and forced to use
English instead. “My mother prepared me for my residential school experience,”
says Ermineskin. “I spent 10 years there, and I didn’t lose my language because
we still spoke it when we got home during the summer holidays.”

Access full article below:
http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/news-views/city/bringing-back-blackfoot-3495/