Aboriginal Languages in Quebec: Fighting Linguicide with Bilingual Education

Abstract

Aboriginal peoples in Quebec are fighting for the survival of their language and culture. An essential component of Aboriginal decolonization and empowerment is the protection and enhancement of the Aboriginal heritage language. In this article, we review twenty years of research in Arctic Quebec (Nunavik) involving Inuit students educated in Inuktitut as well as in French and English. Our research reveals that children not only learn better in their own heritage language as opposed to one of the societally dominant languages, but also develop a more positive view of themselves, and a healthier view of Inuit as a group. Bilingual Education is shown to be of crucial importance for the vitality of Inuit language and culture.

National identity and beliefs about historical linguicide are associated with support for exclusive language policies among the Ukrainian linguistic majority

“…A command of a particular language often serves as an important criterion for asserting inclusive entitlements at national or regional levels (e.g., Castano et al, 2002; Moscatelli et al, 2017). In linguistically heterogeneous states such as Belgium (i.e., French, Dutch, and German), Canada (i.e., English and French) and Switzerland (i.e., French, German, and Italian), but also in societies with indigenous populations (e.g., Australia, Chile, New Zealand, Uganda), language policies in education are common practice (e.g., Taylor et al, 2008; van der Linden & Roets, 2017). Such policies are designed to grant and regulate citizens’ rights to exercise their collective autonomy (i.e., an ability of a group to practice its traditions) within the framework of a multi-ethnic state (e.g., Droogendyk & Wright, 2017; see also Kachanoff et al, 2019).…”

“…Therefore, endorsement of government policies aimed at facilitating a group’s language at the expense of other languages is an essential case for the study of identity-based social mobilization, especially in societies that are confronted with the issue of managing multi-ethnic diversity (e.g., Droogendyk & Wright, 2017; van der Linden & Roets, 2017). In fact, numerous studies have examined the social-psychological processes that lead minority group members to strive for the maintenance or revitalization of their endangered languages to preserve group continuity and continuance (e.g., Droogendyk & Wright, 2017; Jetten & Wohl, 2012; Taylor et al, 2008). Such struggles are closely connected to perceived intergroup threat, and in particular extinction threat, that stems from the shared belief that a language, as the treasured symbol of the ingroup, might one day disappear.…”

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“…For instance, Quebec's mobilization for language laws enshrining the status of French relative to English was facilitated by the prestige of French as the national language of France and its international prestige as the language of the Francophonie network of countries (Bourhis, Montaruli, & Amiot, 2007). Conversely, lesser recognized Aboriginal languages in Francophone majority Quebec undermine the capacity of indigenous minorities to obtain the educational support they need to revive their ancestral language communities (Fettes, 1998;Taylor, Caouette, Usborne, & Wright, 2008). The experience of belonging to a high versus low-status language community is more vivid when status differentials between ethnolinguistic groups are perpetuated through language ideologies (Phillipson, 1988), linguicism (Bourhis, Montreuil, Helly, & Jantzen, 2007), and stereotypes towards "valued" and "devalued" languages, dialects and accents (Giles & Watson, 2013).…”

“…Dominant language majorities endorsing assimilationist policies often portray language minorities as a threat to the authenticity, homogeneity, and indivisibility of the nation state (Barker & Giles, 2004;Crawford, 2000). State policies encouraging or enforcing linguistic assimilation resulted in the partial assimilation of not only first-to third-generation immigrants established in the United States (Ricento,1998), but also of indigenous national minorities of Canada (Taylor et al, 2008) and of historical regional language minorities such as the Breton, Basque, and Provençal in France (Blanchet, 2016).…”