Dr Lindsay Morcom, Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada
2pm Thursday 29th February
Room 206, Faculty of Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics, Clarendon Institute, Walton Street.
This talk will discuss urban language revitalization efforts in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. In this context, community language education, as offered primarily through the Kingston Native Centre and Languages Nest (KNCLN), aims to connect urban Indigenous people of all ages to the languages that are their birthrights, and also offers non-Indigenous people a better understanding of the Indigenous peoples whose lands they occupy. The results are both social and linguistic. First and most obviously, community language education results in greater language knowledge and fluency for learners. However, the results go far beyond that. On an individual level, access to Indigenous languages in an urban centre strengthens learners’ indigenous identities and creates greater connection to culture. More widely, it contributes to the development of strong urban Indigenous communities; it also decolonizes urban spaces by asserting that Indigenous people are present and thriving, and it reinforces the fact that urban centres in Canada are still on Indigenous lands.