Fleshing out that skeleton
This entry features a great article written about the Cree program at Blue Quills First Nations College in the local newspaper, the St. Paul Journal.
SPJ has graciously donated space in its paper every week for the next year to showcase a 'Cree Word of the Week,' in cooperation with Blue Quills. This is very cool, and they are to be commended for their efforts to be inclusive. I hope you enjoy the article.
Cree language learning worlds removed from English
RACHEL DE WAAL
Journal Staff
April 11, 2006
In a portable unit on the Blue Quills First Nations College campus, four rectangular tables are arranged in a square, and a spring breeze is blowing through an open door. Six people are seated around the tables, surrounded by Cree syllabics written on papers, the chalkboard and a flip chart standing in one corner of the room.
This is a lab for the Cree Language Certificate program, launched two years ago with the goal of immersing adult students in Cree so they can become fluent in the language.
Student Roberta Stout spent almost 20 years studying both French and Spanish and says Cree is unlike any European language.
“There’s absolutely no comparison,” says Stout. “Cree has a completely different system of sounds, concepts and ways of putting together sentences. Relationships are built into so many words.”
Student Ralph Bodor, who also teaches classes for the Bachelor of Social Work program at Blue Quills, says Cree is dissimilar because it comes from a different worldview.
“To learn Cree really means you have to shift how you think of the world,” says Bodor. “In Cree, words have stories.”
“In any language, words have an embedded story,” says student Rick Harp. “All the stories combined make up a whole worldview.”
The class gives the example of the word for work, “atoske-,” which derives from arrowhead, and represents how people traditionally had to make arrowheads to survive and 'make a living.'
Harp says he is in constant amazement at the sophistication of Cree.
“I’m in awe of the simple elegance of it. It gives me a greater respect for people who speak it,” says Harp. “I feel more connected to who I am as Nehiyaw (Cree) than I probably have before.”
Stout says she is learning Cree so she can pass it on to her children, and also to gain insight into the world of her relatives.
“I think so much of our own health is intricately bound with our identity,” says Stout. “Being able to speak your own language is something special and meaningful that I’ve never experienced.”
Bodor decided to learn Cree so he could better teach his students, many who are fluent in Cree. “I get students writing their papers in Cree sentence structure, but in English,” says Bodor. “I need to learn as much as I can so students are free to use it in class.”
He says a benefit he didn’t expect from taking the program was learning how to both learn and teach differently.
Instructor Leona Makokis, Blue Quills president, says the teaching methodology is quite unique, and unlike most university classes where students compete to get the highest mark. She says students don’t get grades in this program, just a 'pass' or a 'fail.'
“Here, it’s a collective,” says Makokis. “Anybody walking in here would not know who the instructor is and that’s the way it should be. I’m learning too.”
The program includes classes in grammar, syllabics and morphology, runs from September to June, and changes every year to adapt to the needs of students.
Blue Quills has a more inclusive philosophy,” says Harp. “Teachers and students are collaborators. We’re getting the opportunity to contribute, to refine teaching methods.”
He says the program is also different because it doesn’t dissect the language from a mechanical, linguistic perspective. He says some programs try to make Cree into a museum piece, like a skeleton on display. "We want to put flesh back on the bones and make it living," says Harp.
Makokis hopes to see the program become a four-year university degree, eventually moving into a masters then doctorate. Everyone agrees that the current 10-month program is too short and doesn’t give people enough time to completely learn Cree.
Stout points out that the program tries to get people to a place, in writing and speaking, it takes most children seven years to reach. She also says more resources need to be developed to make learning more accessible.
Learning Cree comes with emotional baggage for many people, says student Marilyn Shirt, sharing a story she was told about a residential school student that was hit by a nun for speaking her own language.
"There's trauma around the language and that trauma is transmitted generationally," says Shirt. "People are having to deal with that when wanting to regain their language."
Harp says while the residential school generation had a disincentive to speak, Cree people today have a lack of incentive to learn it. He thinks Cree rap would be amazing because it would be so fast, and would also show youth the language does have a contemporary application.
Several students in the lab agree they feel a sense of urgency to learn Cree, that if they don’t pass it on, the language will die, along with the culture.
“If we don’t learn, there’s a real pressure that that’s it,” says Harp. “This is the homeland for this language.”
Copyright 2006, St. Paul Journal
SPJ has graciously donated space in its paper every week for the next year to showcase a 'Cree Word of the Week,' in cooperation with Blue Quills. This is very cool, and they are to be commended for their efforts to be inclusive. I hope you enjoy the article.
Rick
. . . . . . . . . . . . .Cree language learning worlds removed from English
RACHEL DE WAAL
Journal Staff
April 11, 2006
In a portable unit on the Blue Quills First Nations College campus, four rectangular tables are arranged in a square, and a spring breeze is blowing through an open door. Six people are seated around the tables, surrounded by Cree syllabics written on papers, the chalkboard and a flip chart standing in one corner of the room.
This is a lab for the Cree Language Certificate program, launched two years ago with the goal of immersing adult students in Cree so they can become fluent in the language.
Student Roberta Stout spent almost 20 years studying both French and Spanish and says Cree is unlike any European language.
“There’s absolutely no comparison,” says Stout. “Cree has a completely different system of sounds, concepts and ways of putting together sentences. Relationships are built into so many words.”
Roberta Stout cuts out cards with Cree syllabics
written on them during a lab for the Cree
Language Certificate Program at Blue Quills.
written on them during a lab for the Cree
Language Certificate Program at Blue Quills.
(photo: Rachel de Waal)
Student Ralph Bodor, who also teaches classes for the Bachelor of Social Work program at Blue Quills, says Cree is dissimilar because it comes from a different worldview.
“To learn Cree really means you have to shift how you think of the world,” says Bodor. “In Cree, words have stories.”
“In any language, words have an embedded story,” says student Rick Harp. “All the stories combined make up a whole worldview.”
The class gives the example of the word for work, “atoske-,” which derives from arrowhead, and represents how people traditionally had to make arrowheads to survive and 'make a living.'
Harp says he is in constant amazement at the sophistication of Cree.
“I’m in awe of the simple elegance of it. It gives me a greater respect for people who speak it,” says Harp. “I feel more connected to who I am as Nehiyaw (Cree) than I probably have before.”
Stout says she is learning Cree so she can pass it on to her children, and also to gain insight into the world of her relatives.
“I think so much of our own health is intricately bound with our identity,” says Stout. “Being able to speak your own language is something special and meaningful that I’ve never experienced.”
Bodor decided to learn Cree so he could better teach his students, many who are fluent in Cree. “I get students writing their papers in Cree sentence structure, but in English,” says Bodor. “I need to learn as much as I can so students are free to use it in class.”
He says a benefit he didn’t expect from taking the program was learning how to both learn and teach differently.
Instructor Leona Makokis, Blue Quills president, says the teaching methodology is quite unique, and unlike most university classes where students compete to get the highest mark. She says students don’t get grades in this program, just a 'pass' or a 'fail.'
“Here, it’s a collective,” says Makokis. “Anybody walking in here would not know who the instructor is and that’s the way it should be. I’m learning too.”
The program includes classes in grammar, syllabics and morphology, runs from September to June, and changes every year to adapt to the needs of students.
Blue Quills has a more inclusive philosophy,” says Harp. “Teachers and students are collaborators. We’re getting the opportunity to contribute, to refine teaching methods.”
He says the program is also different because it doesn’t dissect the language from a mechanical, linguistic perspective. He says some programs try to make Cree into a museum piece, like a skeleton on display. "We want to put flesh back on the bones and make it living," says Harp.
Makokis hopes to see the program become a four-year university degree, eventually moving into a masters then doctorate. Everyone agrees that the current 10-month program is too short and doesn’t give people enough time to completely learn Cree.
Stout points out that the program tries to get people to a place, in writing and speaking, it takes most children seven years to reach. She also says more resources need to be developed to make learning more accessible.
Learning Cree comes with emotional baggage for many people, says student Marilyn Shirt, sharing a story she was told about a residential school student that was hit by a nun for speaking her own language.
"There's trauma around the language and that trauma is transmitted generationally," says Shirt. "People are having to deal with that when wanting to regain their language."
Harp says while the residential school generation had a disincentive to speak, Cree people today have a lack of incentive to learn it. He thinks Cree rap would be amazing because it would be so fast, and would also show youth the language does have a contemporary application.
Several students in the lab agree they feel a sense of urgency to learn Cree, that if they don’t pass it on, the language will die, along with the culture.
“If we don’t learn, there’s a real pressure that that’s it,” says Harp. “This is the homeland for this language.”
Copyright 2006, St. Paul Journal
posted by Rick Harp at 11:46 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Rick - I stumbled upon your blog. Hope all is well with you in Albert. Check out my blog sometime. It's mgoogoo.blogspot.com
Take care,
Maureen
cool blog, and thank yo giving this information about how one can learn cree.
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