Mi' kmaq: a language of interconnectedness

I am fascinated by the way language shapes the way we think and so, was interested in yesterday's Daily News which ran a series of articles on the Mi' kmaq language. I believe when we work at understanding how someone communicates, we begin to learn who they are and to bridge cultures.

"Statistics Canada says Mi'kmaq is the sixth most widely spoken of Canada's 50 aboriginal languages, with almost 9,000 reporting they understood it in 2001. That's remarkable, considering the Mi'kmaq might have been the first aboriginal people in Canada to encounter Europeans.(*) They were almost killed off by imported disease and state-sponsored murder. The government in Halifax put a bounty on the head of all Mi'kmaq men, women and children in the 1750s."

(** I would guess it was more likely the Beothuk in Newfoundland who would have encountered the Vikings who landed there. The Beothuk where wiped out.)

"Anna Nibby Woods, a Mi'kmaq master's student at Mount Saint Vincent University, said people who grew up with an aboriginal language find it difficult to express themselves in English. They find English words are inadequate, because they have little relationship with other words, or with the environment.The Mi'kmaq words for headache and the cure for headache are related to the word for a plant that cures headaches, she said. In English, there is nothing in common between the words 'headache' and 'aspirin.'"

"[Eskasoni resident Joel] Denny said he has been studying Mi'kmaq for 20 years, collecting old songs and figures of speech. He's convinced it originates from the sounds heard in the environment, and is vital to understanding the environment. The meaning of words is embedded in those sounds.'When you talk Mi'kmaq, you talk feelings, you talk description, you talk what happened and what's going to happen,' Denny said. 'We don't name stuff. We describe stuff.'"

"'There's no good or bad in Mi'kmaq. There's just consequences,' Nibby Woods said. 'Everything is interconnected and interrelated. That's why there is respect for everyone around you.'"

You can link to the full article on the link above. The text below is a reproduction of Brian Flinn's article on sample words.

Mi'kmaq words are more descriptive
'Skunk' gets to the point
BRIAN FLINN

Like many people who speak Nova Scotia's native language, Joel Denny bristles at the word "Mi'kmaq." He finds himself saying it, but the first time Denny remembers being identified with that word was 1973, when he was in his early 20s.

Mi'kmaq means "friend" or "ally." It's the word Acadians adopted to describe their relationship with the native people.

"There's no such thing as a nation of friends," Denny said.

The word preferred by many Mi'kmaq speakers is "Lnu." It sounds almost the same as the word "Innu," used by native people in Labrador and eastern Quebec, and "Inuit," used by people in the Arctic.

And it means the same thing: human.

Here are some other words in Nova Scotia's native language:

Springtime: siwkw, "time of draining out."
Summer: nipk, "the time when everything turns green."
Autumn: toqwa'q, "cold weather has arrived."
Winter: kesik "the slippery time."
Skunk: abigjilu "an animal that steps backward and farts."
Caribou: kalibu "an animal that scrapes snow."
Dog: imu'j "an animal that howls"
Wolf: paqtesm "an animal that's echoing all over the place."
Halifax: Jipugtug (often Anglicized as Chebucto) "the greatest harbour."
Cape Breton: Unamagi, usually translated as "foggy land," Denny says it actually means "land of the white dolphin."

(Spelling from various sources. Definitions from Joel Denny).

Here's another article on Mi' kmaq language in schools.

Colleen