Abstract

Wars, diseases, the past policies of territorial expansion, Christianisation, acculturation and the assimilation of Indigenous peoples led to irreversible cultural and linguistic losses. Since the arrival of the first Europeans in the New World, hundreds of Indigenous languages have irrevocably disappeared from the linguistic map of North America. Many of them died out centuries ago, whereas others – like the Beothuk language in Newfoundland – have disappeared relatively recently. Without political action, revitalisation strategies and appropriate legislation, the preservation of Canadian Indigenous languages might be impossible. Therefore, it seems justified to pose the question of what Canada is doing in the political and legal sphere to protect the linguistic rights and heritage of its indigenous people. This paper makes an attempt to answer the question, by means of analysing regulations (and their implementation) concerning Indigenous linguistic rights as contained in the Constitution, federal acts and laws regulating linguistic issues in selected Canadian provinces and territories. All this - supplemented with a brief comparative analysis of steps undertaken to protect Indigenous languages in the immediate vicinity of Canada (in Greenland and Alaska) and in the countries with similar colonial history and significant Indigenous population (Australia and New Zealand) – allows for an assessment of the effectiveness of Canadian language policy towards its native population.

Presenters

Tomasz Soroka
assistant professor, Institute of America Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University, Malopolskie, Poland

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Civic and Political Studies

KEYWORDS

Canada, Indigenous Languages, Language Policy, Linguistic Rights, Language Preservation

Digital Media

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