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Reflections from the Saskatchewan Indigenous Cultural Centre’s Language-Keepers Conference

Kristin Catherwood, Intangible Cultural Heritage Development Officer

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) includes among its 94 Calls to Action the following: 13. We call upon the Federal Government to acknowledge that Aboriginal rights include Aboriginal Language rights. 14. We call upon the federal government to enact an Aboriginal Languages Act that incorporates the following principles: i) Aboriginal languages are a fundamental and valued element of Canadian culture and society, and there is an urgency to preserve them […]

Each year the Saskatchewan Indigenous Cultural Centre (SICC) hosts a Language Keepers conference which brings together speakers of a multitude of indigenous languages from all corners of the province, the country, and the United States. Indigenous peoples have long been fighting to preserve their ancestral languages, and it was the systemic attempts to eradicate them through residential schools which resulted in what Justice Murray Sinclair termed a cultural genocide.

 The TRC’s Calls to Action are a step in the right direction, but they would be impossible to enact without the foundation that has been laid by indigenous groups to preserve their own languages. Whether the federal government responds to the calls to action or not, elders and educators have long been committed to the actual work of language revitalization, a process which depends on language transmission. This year was the SICC’s eleventh Language Keepers conference, and its theme was “Celebrating Youth: Our Future Language Keepers.”

The first two goals of the four goals of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage are documentation and celebration. These are important steps for cultual conservation, but it is only through the third goal, transmission, that cultural heritage can truly live. It is also, unsurprisingly, the most difficult goal to achieve. Similarly, in language-learning, indigenouslanguages have been well-documented, and curricula have been developed to teach them in a classroom setting. There are apps and websites to help people learn. The Language Keepers conference, and others like it, is a celebration and recognition of the importance of indigenous languages. But the hard work comes in the next step – the actual learning of a living language.

As I absorbed the lessons and wisdom shared in the conference presentations, I was struck by how the process of language preservation is similar to our efforts to sustain our living heritage. I was particularly inspired by one of the keynote speakers, Robert Hall, also called maato’ommstatto’osi (First-Winters-Sun), from the Blackfeet Reservation of northwest Montana. I found in his perspectives and ideas about language many parallels with our efforts to safeguard intangible cultural heritage.

In his keynote address, Hall stressed the importance of language learning as an experiential process. Languages are not learned best in a traditional classroom setting, but rather through intimate experiences which train the emotional brain and internalize lessons. It is through, as Hall argued, storytelling and purposeful activities that people can truly become proficient in their language, and from there, become immersed in the worldviews which indigenous languages contain. Hall emphasized the importance of “creating a cultural landscape simulation in your classroom.” In Hall's words, “Our language is housed in our land.” As such, it informs indigenous philosophy and worldview. It is rooted in stories which are in turn rooted in place Our work in intangible cultural heritage is also rooted in place, and its sustainability (through transmission) is dependent on learning in context.

In a conversation following his keynote address, I learned that Hall studied linguistics and anthropology before deciding to teach his language to people in his community. “It’s who I am,” Hall said of his decision to return home. “How I define myself is my people.” And yet, there are challenges to being a young person teaching language, and Hall at 30 years old, must sometimes act as a mediator between elders and youth. “Our identities are shifting,” he said. “A 90 year old has no idea what it’s like to be a 9 year old in 2016.” If indigenous languages are to endure, they must adapt to changing contexts. Once new speakers can grasp their ancestral languages, so too can they understand the worldviews ingrained within them. As Hall said, “It’s embedded in our syntax that we’re related to the earth.” This grounding in place is essential to language transmission, as it is to sustaining intangible cultural heritage.

Hall outlined his own journey in coming to learn his language. He recalled that he was given his Blackfoot name at the age of eight, but over time he forgot how to say it. Years later, once he could speak his own name once more, he related how he felt more comfortable in his own skin, more confident, and more emotionally expressive. Being able to speak his ancestral tongue has connected him to his heritage in a profound way. “It makes me understand my people more, makes me understand my history better.” When speaking his own language, Hall believes, “My ancestors are there to hear me.”

Throughout the conference, I wondered, does language inform culture, or does culture inform language? Like so much I have written about on this blog, the answer, of course, is both. Languages and dialects are contained under the umbrella of intangible cultural heritage, as defined by UNESCO, and yet languages are much larger than any definitional framework.

I remember learning as a child that Inuit people had more than 20 words for snow. I found that interesting, but I didn’t truly understand that it was not some idiosyncrasy, but that for the Inuit, the varying natures of snow have very real consequences for their daily lives – whether snow is of the proper quality for building an igloo, for example. It is only by understanding our interconnectedness with place and the natural environment that we can hope to sustain our intangible cultural heritage. It is through language that we come to that contextual comprehension. Language shapes and informs our worldviews, and in turn, our language adapts and changes with how we live in our local context. Culture and language are like mirror reflections of each other – what one does, so does the other.