There are at least 65 aboriginal ethnic groups in Canada and probably as many languages. However, not all natives speak their ancestral languages, even if they belong to a specific ethnic group. In 1996, some 67.8% spoke English as their mother tongue, while 5.8% spoke French (or 45,955 “ francophone” natives). Of all of Canada ’s speakers of an aboriginal mother tongue, only 15,165 (8.1%) speak an aboriginal language and do not know English or French; however, 187,670 speak an aboriginal language and one official language, usually English. Most so-called “ francophone” natives live in Quebec (28,480), Ontario (6,610), Manitoba (5,110), British Columbia (1,580), Saskatchewan (1,265), and New Brunswick (1,015). English speakers are scattered throughout all the provinces.

One-quarter (207,000) of the native population reported that they had an aboriginal mother tongue, and even more (234,000) that they spoke an aboriginal language. According to Statistics Canada, this would indicate that a relatively large number of speakers learned an aboriginal language when they were older. However, only 15% of the entire native population (120,000) reported that they spoke an aboriginal language at home. Knowledge of an aboriginal language appears more common among those aged 55 and over. It is also worth noting that the Inuit are better able to speak their mother tongue: three-quarters of them reported being able to carry on a conversation in their language.

Native Languages

Native languages are among the oldest languages in the world, many of them dating back thousands of years. T hey are thus far older than English and French. American comparative linguist Joseph Greenberg classifies native languages as stemming from three original languages called “ protolanguages”: Eskimo-Aleut, Eurasian, and Dene-Caucasian.

According to Greenberg, after the last great I ce A ge, native communities in Canada gradually began to move into and lay claim to new geographic areas. In time, each community developed its own language from protolanguages and invented new words inspired by factors such as geography, environment, climate, local fauna and flora, etc. Through the centuries, new languages arose with discernable roots.

Number of Languages

For various reasons, it is difficult to know exactly how many aboriginal languages there are in Canada. Many natives speak English and French as a mother tongue, while others speak both an aboriginal and an official language. Others have only a passing knowledge of their ancestral language, while some minor languages are becoming or are already extinct. In addition, some natives do not participate in federal censuses, and the variety of dialects greatly complicates any classification.

Research has shown that there are between 56 and 70 aboriginal languages in Canada. An American non-governmental organization called Ethnologue, based in Dallas at the Summer Institute of Linguistics, lists 63 languages for Canada:

It is also important to mention those languages on the verge of extinction:

However, statistics from Ethnologue differ from those of the 2001 Canadian federal census. For example, Ethnologue counts 54,614 Cree speakers, while the Canadian government lists 72,880; for Ojibway, 43,000 as opposed to 30,730; for Inuktitut (called Inuit by the federal government), 18,000 speakers against 29,010.

Thus the aboriginal languages with the most speakers are Cree, Ojibway, and Inuktitut. In all of Canada, only a few languages can be differentiated from others by number of speakers: Cree (72,880 mother tongue speakers), Ojibway and Oji-Cree (30,730), and Inuit (29,010). Trailing behind are Montagnais-Naskapi (considered a single language!) and Dene, with roughly 9,000 speakers. The number of speakers of other languages is very often far below 5,000. The 2001 census revealed a decrease in native mother tongues, i.e., the first language learned in the home.

Michif

Spoken by certain natives in Canada and the United States, Michif is unique in that it is composed of two languages: Cree and French. It is thus a mixed language (like Creole languages, without being a Creole language) whose verbs and grammar usually come from Cree, and its nouns and grammar from Michif and Cree. Some verbs and nouns also come from Saulteux.

Michif is particular to the Métis and is threatened in part by their increasing use of French and of other aboriginal languages. In 1991, there were 840 Michif speakers, but it is unclear exactly how many there are today because the 2001 Canadian census did not list Michif among its choice of languages.

Extent of Knowledge of Native Languages

According to the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP, 1996):

The report also showed that “92.5 per cent of all aboriginal mother tongue reports originated from three linguistic groups”: the Algonquian languages (especially Cree and Ojibway/Saulteux), Inuktitut, and the Na-Dene languages (Athapaskan).

In 1990 and 1991, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) conducted a survey on the state of First Nations languages on Canadian reservations. The results were published in two reports: Towards Linguistic Justice for First Nations (1990) and Towards Rebirth of First Nations Languages (1992). The results for aboriginal languages were alarming: the survey showed that out of roughly 53 languages in Canada, 50 were becoming extinct. The report emphasized that only one-third of the 151 communities surveyed (out of approximately 630) could be classified as having a language that was truly vital (i.e., with over 80% of all age groups fluent in their mother tongue) or stable (i.e., with over 60% of all age groups speaking it fluently). In over one-fourth of the communities, the language was “declining,” meaning that there was a decrease in the number of speakers in each age group. Unfortunately, it is estimated that at least 80% of Canada’s aboriginal languages are currently on their way to extinction. Many languages spoken by First Nations peoples have only ten or so speakers, sometimes fewer (e.g., Chinook, Comox, Kutenai, etc.).

In short, only Cree, Inuktitut, and Ojibway are spoken by a large enough population to be considered truly safe from the menace of eventual extinction.

Language Family

While aboriginal languages specialists have proposed the existence of over 200 independent families, American linguist Joseph Greenberg has suggested there are only three of them.

The largest and oldest (the Eurasian family) includes all the Amerindian languages (representing almost all Amerindian nations), followed by the Na-Dene languages of Canada’s northeast and the Eskimo-Aleut languages of the Arctic natives. But these hypotheses remain controversial, and many Canadian and American linguists question this classification.

The more standard classification includes eight language families encompassing 70 languages:

Most Amerindian languages belong to four language families: the Eskimo-Aleut family (5 languages) in the North, the Iroquoian family (5 languages) in mid -ea stern Canada, the Algonquian family (21 langu ages) to the east of the Great Lakes in the Maritimes, and the Na-Dene family (20 languages) in the north and east of the country. Nonetheless, the Penutian (3), Salishan (10), Sioux (2), and Wakashane (4) families make a total of 19 langu ag es.

The Algonquian Family

The Iroquoian Family

The Iroquo ian Family comprises roughly ten languages (45,000 speakers), mostly from Ontario but also from Quebec (Mohawk and Huron) and the United States (North Carolina). 

The Na-Dene Family

The Na-Dene family includes nearly fifty languages divided into three main groups: Haida, Athabascan, and Tlingit.

The Eskimo-Aleut Family

The Eskimo-Aleut family includes two groups (Aleut and Eskimo) of about twenty languages or dialects and some 65,000 speakers. Many linguists prefer the term dialects because they comprise a group of Inuit dialects that includes Inuttut in Eastern Labrador, Inuttitut of South Baffin Island, Inuktitut of North Baffin Island, and Aivilik and Kivalliq of the Keewatin region (Ontario).

There are thus a total of seven languages (including Inuit) all belonging to the Eskimo-Aleut family and spoken in four countries: Russia, the United States (Alaska), Canada, and Greenland.

Important Notices