Fun (albeit nerdy) fact : I was at a sociolinguistics conference at the university of Ottawa in 2019 and one of the talks had a speaker from Statistics Canada who revealed that the number of indigenous languages in Canada was actually closer to 70 than to 60, but in order to protect the anonymity of the speakers of these languages with very few speakers (sometimes only one or two), these languages don't appear in the census or anywhere else.

@TheTravellingLinguist

2 жыл бұрын

This is the perfect place for nerdy facts! 💚

When I have talked to people who have Cree or Ojibway as their first language, they sometimes get he/she, and him/her switched around when they speak English. Initially it caused me great confusion but I am used to it now. Apparently in their languages they use a word that is more like "that person" or "it" instead of he or she. For example, "Where is Susan ?" "He went to the store" or "Where is John ?" " She went to meet his wife at the airport"

@deviationblue

3 жыл бұрын

In English, we typically just say "they". Gender is a construct - especially in language - and i would be ecstatic if we just followed the First Nations' lead and dropped it entirely.

@jewls9400

3 жыл бұрын

I am cree and we don’t really have pronouns. Where I’m from kids will often interchange she and he and sometimes adults do too. And we don’t have gendered words like in Spanish or French

@nottechytutorials

2 жыл бұрын

Its interesting to see that other people have seen this too. Older people would get their pronouns mixed up in english bc there's no "she/him" in their native tongue. But I disagree with that guy that says "gender is a construct", the lack of pronouns in speech does not mean there is no differentiation between the sexes in practice.

@KenneyCmusic

Жыл бұрын

I'm Cree, and currently in Cree classes. In Nehiyawewin there are singular, plural, exclusive, and inclusive forms of words, but no male and female forms. Such as the words Niya means I, or me, niyanān means We, Kiya means you, Wiya for he, she, it.

@queerparadox8328

Жыл бұрын

​@@nottechytutorials gender is different from sex though ._.

thank you very much! the 4th person is also present in Bengali, which even has 5th person, meaning that there's 3 different ways of saying (s)he. on the other side, there's no gender distinction. Quote: Bengali has different third-person pronouns for proximity. The first are used for someone who is nearby, and the second are for those who are a little further away. The third are usually for those who are not present. In addition, each of the pronouns have different forms for familiar and polite.

@TheTravellingLinguist

4 жыл бұрын

That’s super cool! Crazy how there are similarities between languages on the other side of the world that are so different. :)

I love diversity. All languages shoud have status to be survived. I think Indigenous people have to request their autonomous region and territories to run their lands by their own will.

@TheTravellingLinguist

2 жыл бұрын

Thankfully a number of indigenous communities are actively trying to save and revive languages so hopefully this will slow or reverse the language endangerment process.

There are a few things I didn't know before. Thanks, Dillon

Thanks for the educational video! You have just identified what I'm having trouble with right now, the "polysynthetic language" where affixes are placed on nouns or verbs. This definitely makes less words for a sentence, but difficult to remember the different variations! I was just reading the dictionary and there was a lot just for verbs, but I would like to learn the language.

@TheTravellingLinguist

2 жыл бұрын

Agreed! Definitely makes a language extra challenging!

Save canadian languages

2:27 fascinating. I have wondered about this, if there were any resemblances between native languages in the Americas and in Siberia / Asia.

Great video

Does anyone still speak these native languages at home and at school and work

@karoniesthompson4355

2 жыл бұрын

Yes they do. I’m learning to speak Mohawk and you won’t hear many young people speaking it in public, but you will hear older people speaking Mohawk to each other in public like eating breakfast at a diner or something.

@dariusanderton3760

Жыл бұрын

In northern parts of Canada, often in places only accessible by airplane, there are even people in their 30's who prefer their aboriginal language because they are not as good in English or French. Even the kids talk to each other in their local language.

How terrible to punish children for speaking their mother tongue! I hope those who speak their indigenous language receive support and financial help to study those languages.

Arabic also has single, dual, and plural meaning more than two forms of you and many other words. Have you studied Arabic? Also, good job at explaining Abugidas. Both phonetic writing systems for Japanese also use them. Have you studied Japanese? You should do a video about how to read and write languages in Canadian aboriginal syllabics. Here's a good question. Do all of those languages that use those symbols pronounce the letters the same or do they like languages written in most alphabets have differences in how the symbols are pronounced for different languages?

@TheTravellingLinguist

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the ideas! Such great questions. I have studied a very small amount of Arabic and Japanese but I have a 0% ability to speak hahaha

@adriennefloreen

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheTravellingLinguist Hey I just wanted to let you know that I just made a video about this "toy" I got for my son that claims to teach the body parts in 12 languages. Of course, it actually does not, unless you and/or your child are already a linguist... As a linguist, I think you would enjoy watching this video: kzread.info/dash/bejne/in2lvKmBoaSqp7Q.html

@adriennefloreen

3 жыл бұрын

By the way I mentioned the native Canadian languages in that video. I was impressed by your video about them and have wanted to learn to read that script for years. You should make a video about how to read and pronounce it and I was disappointed that you didn't even give a few example words in your video about the languages written in Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics!

Inuktitut is mine in Labrador

I came here to find out the vocabulary size of these languages, but these numbers are impossible to find. So I will simply ask this question - to what degree is the threatened status of these languages the result of their vocabulary size and lack of power in the contemporary world, which is full of nouns and verbs which would have not cognates in indigenous languages. For example, how would you express in Cree this thought: "The veterans' hospital across the interstate from the polka-dot-painted grain silos had a sub-basement cafeteria where the gastroenterologists, X-ray technicians, oncologists, admin assistants and accountants would meet for their fantasy basketball league trades."

@kellensarien9039

2 жыл бұрын

I take it that the Travelling Linguist is not going to answer this question. If he cannot courageously face uncomfortable truths, his claim to be a source of information and understanding is severely compromised.

@gayvideos3808

2 жыл бұрын

I think it's the other way around, the lack of words for newer concepts is because the speech community hasn't had the opportunity to develop those words. That's what I heard about Okinawan

@kellensarien9039

2 жыл бұрын

@@gayvideos3808 Developing new words would, in most contexts, simply come down to borrowing. Languages borrow from one another all the time, including English, but for an indigenous language to come up to speed in the modern world, most words would be borrowed from English, and we can ask whether it is properly called an indigenous language anymore.

@dariusanderton3760

Жыл бұрын

No need to be so hostile. The indigenous languages are much weaker languages and are endangered, but all languages are interesting and attempts should be made to preserve them. In many isolated places the indigenous languages are still spoken quite often and are still the primary language. I do think the indigenous languages have a much smaller vocabulary, a simpler grammar, and I think it takes more syllables to express something (they might have fewer letters than we do, therefore more syllables are needed ?) . I think their words are less specific in many cases ( I am not sure if this is true, but someone told me that in Ojibway they do not have separate words for these four items: nail, screw, bolt, and pin. They just have one word for all four items). English does have a huge vocabulary, even compared to the other European languages, since English constantly swallows words from other languages, French, Latin and Greek for example. English has a very large literature going back centuries (Shakespeare, Chaucer), and we've been making dictionaries for centuries. Meanwhile the alphabets that were created for some Indigenous languages were actually created by Christian missionaries in the 1800's. For some reason English also seems to shorten words or phrases, for example if you look at an instruction manual that shows about ten different languages, English is usually one of the shortest. Even German is a fair bit longer, not just the Romance languages. Regarding borrowing, I think that they use their own language for numbers up to about five or ten, and then just use English for numbers higher than that. The Ojibwa names for numbers higher than about ten or twenty are large words so English is just used instead. I have heard that spellings, pronunciations and words change a bit even if you travel 100 miles, kind of like what European languages were like several centuries ago before national governments standardized the major languages (French, English, German, etc).

Wawa is only Ojibway sord I know it meansCanadian goose s major convenience store chain

@dariusanderton3760

Жыл бұрын

moose and mosquito are indigenous words :) In Ojibwa I think moose is something like mooz

Did the indigenous have a written language??

@TheTravellingLinguist

Жыл бұрын

Most Indigenous languages in Canada (if not all) have a writing system (either latin script or Canadian Aboriginal syllabics). Oral tradition is a big part of many Indigenous cultures in Canada so writing systems were created relatively recently in history to help others learn the language. Some like Mi’kmaq have been using hieroglyphs since time immemorial to write certain things.

@pl9466

Жыл бұрын

@@TheTravellingLinguist So the answer is no I guess because they didn't create Latin and they only use English to help others learn their verbal language. Thanks for clearing this up.

Michif? Lolz

@coltinchicoine7413

2 жыл бұрын

It's metis language they speak bungi too

You do realise there are many language families in europe? Examples, slavic, romance, germanic, Hellenic, celtic etc. The language 'families' you mention are not true language families, they are branches, for those who don't understand I'll use french as an example, french is a romance language (romance being the branch) and it is part of the Indo-European language family (Indo-European being the family)

@ryanhinks5515

2 жыл бұрын

You do realize that you're droning on like a pontificating windbag? 🙄

It’s wrong that only English and French are considered as the official languages of Canada. Extremely disturbing.

@kellensarien9039

2 жыл бұрын

You could not make all 70 indigenous languages official. It would be absurd chaos to guarantee that all federal government services would be available in 72 languages. If you made one official, that would invite objections from all the other indigenous language speakers, as well as the numerous languages that have more native speakers than indigenous languages (Italian, German, Polish, Chinese, Hindi, Korean Gujarat etc etc), who are as equally Canadian as indigenous people and have just as much right to be here. A parallel situation is India. India has dozens of native languages, but only two official ones: Hindi and English. English was made an official language at independence so that Indians who could not speak Hindi could communicate with the government. Since practically all indigenous Canadians (and other Canadians) speak either English or French, there is no need for any other official language, except as an expensive and empty gesture.

@gayvideos3808

2 жыл бұрын

@@kellensarien9039 We have 21 official languages in Alaska (English and all 20 indigenous languages, including 2 dormant ones). And Mexico has no official language but 60+ indigenous languages have equal status with Spanish as national languages

@kellensarien9039

2 жыл бұрын

@@gayvideos3808 In Canada, if a language is official, that has a very specific meaning. It means that every Canadian has the right to request communications and service from the federal government in that language. Our bureaucracy, which is already bloated, would be orders of magnitude more corpulent if there were 70 official languages, and every government office needed the staff to service every language that came through the door.

@thato596

Жыл бұрын

Yes i agree also. It is sad that indigenous languages are not official but colonial languages are official. They not even taught at most schools. They like saying canada is bilanguage country, that exclude indigenous languages. I think french should also be removed from official languages to make it fair