Negotiating Métis culture in Michif: Disrupting Indigenous language shift

Abstract

Language contact, shift, and multilingualism are social processes inherent within power relationships under colonization and globalization that have shifted the values of languages and impacted cultures based upon political power. To explore understandings of language, colonization and globalization in regard to Indigenous peoples, the article considers the case of language negotiations amongst the Metis - Indigenous peoples of Canada and Northern United States who speak Michif. Michif is a contact language created in the 1800’s under the forces of colonization but which is increasingly affected by the dominance of the English language under continuing colonization and globalization. This article shares discussions with Metis Elders who focus attention on 1) The Meaning of Nehiyewak Language in Metis Communities, 2) Negotiating Identities through Language in Metis Contexts, and 3) Importance of Sharing Stories in Indigenous Languages and Relationships to Land. Discussion follows of lifestyles, racial categories and repression of identities, languages and relationships to self and culture, relationships to English, and language revitalization. Conclusions suggest some of the many forms that Michif language retention and revitalization might take as options for the future.