Building a Community Language Development Team with Québec

• Main Authors: Bill Jancewicz, Marguerite Mackenzie, George Guanish, Silas Nabinicaboo
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Indian; montagnais; naskapi; Tundra
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.411.8501; http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/ILAC/ILAC_8.pdf

Although the Naskapi language has many features in common with other Algonquian languages spoken in northern Quebec, it is in a unique situation because of the Naskapi people’s relatively late date of European contact, their geographic isolation, and the fact that, within their territory, Naskapi speakers outnumber speakers of Canada’s official languages. Historically, the vernacular word from which we derive the modern term “Naskapi ” was applied to people not yet influenced by European culture. Nowadays, however, it refers specifically to the most remote Indian groups of the Quebec-Labrador peninsula (Mailhot, 1986). The Naskapi of today, who now comprise the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach near Schefferville, are direct descendants of nomadic caribou hunters of the Ungava tundra region. Although they are sometimes considered a part of the larger Innu grouping (also referred to as Montagnais-Naskapi by linguists and anthropologists), the Naskapi themselves insist that they are a unique people-group. Indeed, it can be shown both linguistically and ethnographically that the Naskapi are distinct from their