Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute facts for kids

The Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute (CILLDI) is a special summer school. It helps people learn and save Indigenous languages. CILLDI is held every year at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. It brings together language experts, teachers, and people who want to keep their languages alive.

CILLDI started in 1999 with just one course. This course taught the Cree language. By 2016, over 600 students had joined CILLDI. They represented almost 30 different Indigenous languages from Canada. CILLDI is now a very important program for saving First Peoples' languages. It is a joint effort between the University of Alberta and the University of Saskatchewan. CILLDI helps communities where languages are at risk. It also provides useful training that students can use back home.

Why Indigenous Languages Need Help

Many Indigenous languages in Canada are in danger of disappearing. This means fewer and fewer people speak them. Saving these languages is very important for Indigenous cultures. It helps keep their traditions and knowledge alive.

There are more than 60 Aboriginal languages in Canada. With the exception of Cree, Ojibway and Inuktitut, all Canadian Indigenous languages are endangered, many critically so. Indigenous communities, colleges and universities are working to preserve — and in some cases, restore — these languages, but so far there has been no national initiative dedicated to Indigenous language sustainability in Canada.

—Sally Rice, 2016, ANVILS, University of Alberta

In the 1970s, people in Saskatchewan and Manitoba became interested in Indigenous languages. They wanted to create programs to teach them. A big report in 1996, called the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples report, showed how serious the problem was for Canada's Indigenous languages. In 1999, a global conference on Indigenous education was held.

By 2006, only a small number of Indigenous children were learning an Indigenous language at home. This showed a sad future for these languages. That's why programs like CILLDI are so important.

CILLDI's History

CILLDI was started in 1999 by a group of people who cared deeply about languages. These founders included Donna Paskemin, Heather Blair, and Sally Rice. The very first CILLDI summer school took place in July 2000. It was held on the Onion Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. The first course was about the Cree language. Fifteen students from Alberta and Saskatchewan attended.

CILLDI was inspired by a similar program in the United States. This program is called the American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI). It is based at the University of Arizona. A special guest at the first CILLDI event was Freda Ahenakew. She was a famous Cree linguist and a recipient of the Order of Canada. Her work, along with that of Dr. Verna Kirkness, helped inspire CILLDI. Donna Paskemin, who taught the first Cree course, had worked with Freda Ahenakew before.

Arden Ogg, from the Cree Literacy Network, said that Donna Paskemin was the main person who made CILLDI happen. She helped guide it as a teacher and fundraiser. Donna always worked with Elders and followed their traditions. Her hard work built the foundation for CILLDI's efforts to save languages.

In 2004, Donna Paskemin started a Cree Immersion Day camp for children. She wanted the next generation to learn the language. Her own daughter, Jodee Jayne, was the youngest student at CILLDI one summer.

In July 2001, the summer school moved to St. Paul, Alberta. It had 38 students. They spoke languages like Cree, Dene Suline, Michif, and North Slavey. Students came from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories. Many experts taught the courses.

In 2003, the program was hosted in La Ronge, Saskatchewan. More classes were offered. After that, the summer school found its permanent home at the University of Alberta campus.

The Northern Teacher Education Program (NORTEP) helped host CILLDI. NORTEP started in 1976. Its goal was to help people from the North, especially Indigenous people, become teachers.

CILLDI has an Advisory Council. This council helps guide the program. Important members include Donna Paskemin, Heather Blair, and Sally Rice.

Students and Teachers at CILLDI

Most CILLDI students come from Western Canada and the North. This includes British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Yukon, and Nunavut. The teachers and helpers at CILLDI are language experts from all over North America.

Many organizations support CILLDI. These include government ministries and other universities. Some examples are the University of Arizona, Blue Quills First Nations Tribal College, and the University of Saskatchewan.

The instructors at CILLDI are educators, researchers, and Indigenous language speakers. They come from schools and universities across North America.

What CILLDI Offers

Every summer, CILLDI offers university courses about Indigenous language and culture. CILLDI mainly focuses on training Indigenous language teachers. It aims to help bring Indigenous languages back to life in Western Canada.

The courses cover many topics. These include how languages work (linguistics) and how to save endangered languages. Students also learn about teaching languages and creating language lessons. CILLDI also has an online collection of books and learning materials.

Community Linguist Certificate (CLC)

Some courses at CILLDI can lead to a special certificate. It's called the Community Linguist Certificate (CLC). This program lets students earn university credit while learning about Indigenous languages. The CLC program helps students get ready for further studies.

The CLC program was created in 2007 by Sally Rice. She is a professor at the University of Alberta and a co-founder of CILLDI. By 2016, over 90 Indigenous language speakers in Canada had earned their CLC.

CLC students are often fluent speakers of an Indigenous language. They might be experienced teachers. Or they might be young people working to save their language in their community. The CLC helps them understand the deeper rules of their language.

Sally Rice explained what CLC holders might do:

In developing the program, we assumed that the holder of the Community Linguist Certificate would likely be called upon by his or her community to lead any local language documentation, maintenance or revitalization efforts. In addition to the expected work of dictionary, grammar and text production, certificate recipients would probably be tasked with projects such as refining orthographic systems and promoting them to speakers, recording Elders and transcribing their stories, serving as an interpreter, digitizing oral texts, conducting language use surveys, developing planning and policy documents, writing language-based grant proposals, promoting public awareness, working with local Elders and teachers to develop language curriculum materials, offering language classes for adult learners, producing a community newsletter in the Aboriginal language, running language and culture camps and assisting the band administration in implementing language policy in communities and schools.

—Sally Rice cited in Flynn 2016

She also used a helpful comparison:

[S]peaking a language is like driving a car, while doing linguistic analysis is like servicing it: we have to take the language off the road, so to speak, put it up on blocks, see how all the component parts work together and, if need be, take them apart. However, we can and do put the analytical units back together ....

—Sally Rice cited in Flynn 2016

The Tsúùt’ìnà Gunaha Project is an example of the CLC program in action. It's a partnership between the Tsuu T'ina Nation and the University of Alberta. They offer the CLC program on the reserve. Stephen Crowchild, who leads the Tsuut'ina Gunaha Institute, is a former CILLDI student.

A National Vision for Indigenous Language Stability (ANVILS)

ANVILS is a special workshop held during CILLDI's summer program. It brings together Indigenous leaders, scholars, and government representatives. They talk about how to make Indigenous languages strong and lasting across Canada.

CILLDI's Important Role

CILLDI plays a key role in connecting academic knowledge with community needs. Researchers found that information about language theory is often easy to find in libraries. But the best ways to teach and learn Indigenous languages are often found within First Nations communities themselves. Institutes like CILLDI work closely with these communities. This helps share valuable language strategies and materials.