Indigenous languages are struggling for breath in the Global North. In Canada, Indigenous language medium schools and early childhood programs remain independent and marginalized. Despite government commitments, there is little support for Indigenous language-in-education policy and initiatives. This article describes an inaugural, countrywide,…

We examine morphosyntactic knowledge of Labrador Inuttitut by Inuit receptive bilinguals (RBs)--heritage speakers who are capable of comprehension, but produce little or no speech. A grammaticality judgment study suggests that RBs possess sensitivity to morphosyntactic violations, though to a lesser degree than fluent bilinguals. Low-proficiency…

The current study reports preliminary information gathered about First Nations English dialects in Canada and considers implications for speech-language pathology practice. Information was gathered from literature searches and forums of First Nations and non-First Nations speech-language pathologists, developmentalists, and linguists. The…

A study investigated the existence of a definite article in Montagnais, an Algonquian language spoken by about 6,000 Canada natives. The language has not yet been totally described, and teachers, who must create their own instructional materials for Montagnais language instruction, are unsure as to whether to teach their own usage or what they are…

Initiated in October, 1980, by the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT), the study addressed two concerns: present levels of service and demands for both services and programs from the GNWT to the non-English-speaking Dene and recommendations to the Executive Committee on steps to be taken now within government to overcome problems…

The struggle of one Cree community, the Waskaganish (formerly called Rupert House) in Quebec, to maintain its own language and culture within the larger multicultural Canadian context has led to the creation and development of a linguistic experiment, the Cree Way Project. After a discussion of the Canadian historical context, this report…

In an effort to develop non-biased assessment techniques for the native languages of native Canadians, and to facilitate identification and intervention for language disorders among native children, the ratings of children's Inuktitut language samples by an untrained Inuit teacher were compared with length complexity data derived by linguistic…

Many immigrants, refugees, and aboriginal Canadians learn their own languages in the normal, informal way. These minority languages learned informally are not valued as a skill that yields returns in the labor market in the same way the official languages or formally learned languages do. What counts as a skill in a society, in a given point in…

The Aboriginal Language Standardisation (ALS) Project's task is to develop quality literacy materials in order to help preserve aboriginal languages of Canada. The Canadian Assembly of First Nations, a group of tribal leaders, recently called for the establishment of standards for written and oral languages by approving terminology, developing…

To assist Cree-speaking native Canadian students in English language acquisition, the Mighty Moose Reading Project was initiated with a threefold aim: to develop program materials designed specifically as supplementary beginning reading materials for native students; to determine the effectiveness of the materials in improving reading skills, oral…

The extent to which Canadian employers recognize the informally acquired first languages of immigrants and aboriginal persons as prior learning qualifications for formal employment in the business, government, and education sectors was examined through a survey of organizations across Ontario. Personalized questionnaires were mailed to a sample of…

This teacher resource manual is designed to guide development of a high school curriculum in Canadian Native languages. It outlines the main features of such a program, clarifies the responsibilities of partners (teachers, administrators, community, native elders) in the implementation of a community-based curriculum, presents pedagogical…