Posted by Elise Miranda on April 22, 2011
 
By Elise Miranda, cultural attaché at the Consulate-General of France in Atlantic Canada.
 
Official French-English bilingualism

Painting by Pascal A. Pelletier, artist/owner of the native art gallery KLU’SKAP in Moncton. Photo : Pascal A. Pelletier

New Brunswick, eastern Canada, is the only officially bilingual province of the country. Indeed as soon as 1969 Louis Robichaud’s provincial government voted the “Act on the Official Languages of New Brunswick”, directly inspired from the federal act of the same name, which Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s government had adopted the same year in Ottawa. This is the only province in Canada that applies federal bilingual standards. Therefore, « New Brunswick has its own legislation regarding official languages, parallel French and English school systems, and laws insuring both groups are treated in equal manner by the government. »

Settled in today’s eastern Canada since the 17th century, the Acadians have lived through an eventful history: massively deported from New Brunswick by the English troops between 1755 and 1763, they gradually returned at the end of the 18th century. They now form a people of over 350,000 speakers of French and cover 32,7% of the province population, most of the remaining two thirds being speakers of English.
 
Endangered indigenous languages

But New Brunswick is also, and actually above all, the land of American Indian tribes: there are three of them, all belonging to the Wabanaki linguistic group of the Algonquian language family:

– the Micmac, present all over Atlantic Canada as well as Quebec, who were always the region’s dominant ethnic group;

– the Maliseet and the Passamaquody, present in Quebec, Maine and western New Brunswick, along Saint John river for the former, and over the banks of the bay bearing their name for the latter. These two peoples are believed to have divided as recently as the 18th century. Their languages and cultures, which are quite similar, clearly differ from those of the Micmac.

This leaves Micmac as the province’s third largest mother language, although its speakers cover only 0,4% of the population.

Painting by Pascal A. Pelletier, artist/owner of the native art gallery KLU’SKAP in Moncton. Photo : Pascal A. Pelletier

In a report titled « the Right to Identity, Culture and Language; a Child’s Path to Development », New Brunswick Ombudsman (Child and Youth Advocate) Bernard Richard writes « New Brunswickers may pride themselves on being experts in the area of official language minority rights and preserving and protecting official language minorities. However, our record in preserving and promoting indigenous languages and cultures, which are unique to our part of the world, can only be described – given the data available below – as an abject failure. »

The report point out that only one third of the 20,000 souls of the Micmac Nation have kept using their language, and that the population is aging. Besides, the number of New Brunswickers claiming Maliseet as mother language has dropped from 860 in 2006 to 490 in 2011.

In another report titled « Hand in Hand, A Review of the First Nations Child Welfare in New Brunswick » (2010), the same Bernard Richard outlines that up to 72% of indigenous children aged 6 to 14 are unable to speak or understand the language of their grandparents. This generation of children is now the last one bearing a chance of being raised in an indigenous language environment, as well as to « be able one day to share their people’s stories and songs with the generations to come. »
 
An alarming situation

While Micmac is still spoken in the reservations of the First Nation, Maliseet is largely on the brink of extinction. Passamaquoddy has probably already disappeared, or at best, has blended with the similar Maliseet language. The world nowadays counts no more than 1,500 speakers of the two dialects combined (Maliseet and Passamaquoddy), the majority of whom is aged. So this language is truly endangered and the worst is likely to happen if nothing is done to restore its use among the children.

Given the relative remoteness of these indigenous peoples, the population of New Brunswick isn’t really informed of the situation. Awareness is growing among various players and authorities of the area, but an actual awareness and restoration campaign must be launched as soon as possible in hope to preserve these indigenous languages.