PeterC wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 2:16 am
Neither the Canadian First Nations nor the Australian Aboriginals actually speak their indigenous languages at home as their first language (to the best of my knowledge), so in that regard their situation is already a lot worse than the TIbetans, who like most people in China do not speak Mandarin as a first language. The question above was about the language of instruction in schools, and I'm pretty sure nobody is advocating for using one of the many first nation languages as the language of instruction in Canadian schools, which would only further the isolation of that community.
I agree that the situation of those two communities is deplorable and it is widely accepted by their governments that over a century of racist policies, first by the former colonial governments and then continued by the independent governments, caused that situation: it involves a whole lot more than languages.
Nobody said this was straightforward. Preserving a culture in part requires preserving the language. But preserving a community also requires ensuring it has an economic future beyond being a theme park, and that means integration into an economic bloc of meaningful scale, which many minority language communities could not constitute on their own.
It's ironic that you made snide comments above about how I should inform myself before forming an opinion, and yet here you are making completely uninformed comments about indigenous languages in Canada.
There are still many native speakers of indigenous languages in Canada who speak those languages at home; I have personally met several such people. Indigenous people in Canada are widely calling for increased education in their languages, including having indigenous languages as the primary language of instruction. Steps are being taken to create immersion programs for
Kwak'wala,
Mi'kmak, and other indigenous languages.
Canada is a signatory to UNDRIP, whose article 14 declares:
Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.
States shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language.
[edited - Kim]