Indigenous educators and community members from Indigenous communities across Saskatchewan have been meeting in Saskatoon this week to discuss language revitalization.
The Indigenous Languages Summit is taking place at the University of Saskatchewan.
Multiple days have been set aside for speakers, workshops, and discussions on Indigenous language revitalization across the province.
The summit is hosted by the Northern Lights School Division.
Rick Laliberte, Board Member for the school division, says they are working to transfer what students are learning about Indigenous languages in the classroom to the rest of the community.
“We can’t just expect our teachers to provide everything,” said Laliberte. “We want our communities to to be engaged in revitalizing and strengthening the language now that we know that we’re in a crisis mode. The crisis is that we’re losing our language.”
Laliberte, who also serves as the Mayor of Beauval, believes once young people here their traditional language all around them they will learn it more quickly.
“Because these are life experiences. I think you’ll learn your language if you pray in your language, if you work in your language, if you eat in your language. I think that’s where that language will stick.”
Laliberte also says one thing he has noticed at the summit is that northern Indigenous community have a better handle on their languages while southern communities seem to better understand ceremony.
He says the summit gives these communities from North and South an opportunity to learn from each other.
“Ceremony and language, if we can combine this, and this is what we’re realizing from last year’s summit that the South and the North need to come together, and we need to network and partner… we’re all interrelated.”
(TOP PHOTO: Rick Laliberte at the Indigenous Languages Summit at the U of S. Photo by Joel Willick)