Study evaluates new model for reviving endangered languages

by Lynda Hills

McIvor

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.