How to increase Blackfoot fluency? Knowledge keeper says create immersive programs

A Blackfoot ceremonial knowledge keeper on Siksika Nation says he is concerned for the future of fluent speakers. 

Friday is National Indigenous Languages Day — the day was created with the intention of raising awareness and building preservation support.

Kent Ayoungman, ceremonial knowledge keeper and member of the Siksika Nation, east of Calgary, said there are language revitalization initiatives and efforts being made, but more needs to be done. 

"There's not enough people speaking Blackfoot right now, and I'm worried about that," he said. 

Many of the people who are Blackfoot language speakers are older, he said, and parts of the language could disappear when they pass. 

"We've already lost a lot of people. Especially through COVID, you know? And we're losing a lot of our Blackfoot language speakers." 

The Siksika Membership Department said that, as of 2021, there were nearly 8,000 registered Siksika members. Of those, 582 were fluent Blackfoot speakers.

Ayoungman said efforts have focused on language revitalization, but he wants to see an immersive language program — going beyond the practical uses of the language like colours and numbers.  

"The best way to do it is getting non-verbal children to [speak it as] their first language, but it's going to take a lot of work." 

Crystal Many Fingers, author and member of Kainai Nation in southern Alberta, said she remembers her mother, a residential school survivor, telling her about how she was attacked for speaking her first language, Blackfoot.

Many Fingers, who designed Indigenizing and decolonizing curriculum at Bow Valley College, said even still there are many Canadians who don't know about the intergenerational trauma left by residential schools.

Residential schools were church-run, government-funded boarding centres for Indigenous children that operated in Canada for more than 100 years. Indian, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their families and culture and forced to learn English, embrace Christianity and adopt the customs of the country's white majority. 

She said that children on First Nations are learning Blackfoot in their school curriculum and teaching it to their parents. 

She wrote a children's book titled A'pistotooki kii Ihkitsik Kaawa'pomaahkaa (Creator and the Seven Animals, Why Are We Here?) in partnership with the Calgary Public Library. She said that with language comes values and culture. 

"Our parents went to residential school, but we're bringing it back, we're trying to … revive that," she said.