Chapter 11: Indigenous Languages

This Chapter included several excerpts of an interview with a fluent Mohawk speaker, David Kanatawakhon-Maracle. In the interview, Dr. Kanatawakhon-Maracle talked about how important language is to the identity of an Indigenous person. Although most of the Indigenous languages spoken in what is currently Canada are quite endangered, it will be possible to preserve some of them. Teaching the languages to young people is a vital part of the preservation effort, and having useful, accurate teaching materials is important for effective teaching. People with training in Linguistics can make valuable contributions to supporting communities in documenting languages and creating teaching materials.

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Essentials of Linguistics Copyright © 2018 by Catherine Anderson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.