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Aboriginal languages endangered

Author

John Holman, Windspeaker Correspondent, Anzac Alta.

Volume

7

Issue

26

Year

1990

Page 31

Canadian Native languages are being lost because parents neglect to teach their children.

Sheila Keizie, a Cree language teacher at Anzac, regrets that her two daughters did not learn to speak their mother tongue. They both speak English and the youngest can understand Cree but can't speak it. Ironically, she's learning to speak French.

Keizie grew up in an environment where Cree was a necessity. It's now hardly found in modern society.

"You hardly meet anyone now, who will speak to you in Cree," she said.

"I never taught them at home. I was just like any other parent. I didn't think Cree was important for them," she explained. "I'd rather see my girls get educated rather than learn Cree in school."

Keizie grew up speaking Cree in her hometown of Buffalo Narrow, Saskatchewan. Her two sisters and two brothers also speak Cree.

When Keizie completed Grade 8 at Buffalo Narrows she moved to Prince Albert to finish her schooling and to work. She later moved to Edmonton and lived there for two and a half years before returning to Buffalo Narrows.

As kids grow older they seem to lose interest in learning languages, Keizie said.

"The Grade 5 and 6 classes are not as eager to learn Cree as the younger kids," she said. "They don't have interest. They weren't brought up speaking Cree."

A secretary for 14 years, she came to Anzac School in November to temporarily replace another teacher.

About two hours of instruction are given to each grade in the 67-student school. There are no cultural components to the program, though she is debating on showing the kids how to cook bannock.

She teaches numbers, colors and common Cree words; the older students learn sentences in Cree.

"Seeing that I'm new to it I don't know what I'm really supposed to teach them," she said. "I never really taught before so I don't know where to go."

Can she talk with any of her students in Cree?

"No, I can't. Maybe I could run a sentence by them but I don't think they'd fully understand me," she said. "They asked me to read something to them in Cree and I read it. Nobody understood it."