For the first time in hundreds of years, the Mi’kmaw language is having a moment.
The language is one of the descendants of proto-Algonquian, and the only one in the Eastern Algonquian subgroup that has over 1,000 speakers. Over 10,000 people currently know Mi’kmaw.
“It’s been shut down by the residential schools for so long,” said Mi’kmaw linguist Bernie Francis.
“And so our people were discouraged from speaking and of course, now that they grew up without the language, their children do not speak it. And that is the beginning of the end of the language.”
But efforts to revitalize it are ongoing. And in Nova Scotia, the government recently announced it was going to officially recognize it as the province’s first language, with more support going toward preventing Mi’kmaw from forever falling out of use.
New learners of the language, however, will find that it is a whole different ball game from any European language. In fact, Mi’kmaw is quite unlike most languages spoken elsewhere in the world.
Here are just a few aspects of what makes the language truly special.
A world on the move
Bernie Francis of Membertou First Nation is one of the few linguists who are experts in Mi’kmaw (Nic Meloney/CBC)
Unlike noun-heavy languages such as English, the Mi’kmaw language is based on the verb, with prefixes, suffixes and infixes determining gender, tense, plurality and many other aspects.
Nouns are really just verbs with morphemes that give them a noun-like quality. A pronoun system exists, but these are usually reserved for emphasis.
This stress on verbs means the language is highly flexible, and easily allows for the creation of new words and expressions.
Take the following “sentence-word” which is featured in the book The Language of This Land, Mi’kma’ki, co-authored by…
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