'It's a big dream but we need dreamers': Reawakening the dormant Wendat language

The last fluent speakers of the Wendat language died about 150 years ago, but today you can hear children practising how to pronounce words like wahta' (maple), iyondie' (duck), yahndawa' (river) and tsou'tayi' (beaver) at the Orak daycare in Wendake, Que.

They're also used to hearing their language teacher Andrée Levesque-Sioui say "Atien," which means to sit down, and "Sakenhk," to stand up.

"The most regular teaching of the language is being taught at the daycare," said Levesque-Sioui.

She spends half an hour to 45 minutes a week with the children.

"Then, it's the role of the educators to have all the tools; it's up to them to continue to teach what I teach and to remind the children [that] instead of speaking French, they can say things in Wendat."

Levesque-Sioui's lessons are a part of a larger community-wide effort to reawaken the language. The last fluent speakers of Wendat died during the second half of the 19th century and French became the mother tongue of people living in Wendake. 

"There is a sadness about having lost the language and it's a way to honour all those who have spoken it," she said. "It roots us to the natural world."

The challenges of reviving a dormant language

While the desire to revitalize the language was felt in the 1970s and 1980s, the biggest push came in 2007 with Project Yawenda, funded by a grant through the federal Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

"There's a draw that we have because we know that there's something missing," said Megan Lukaniec, a professor of Indigenous language revitalization at the University of Victoria.

"Even though we have no speakers today, there is still that emotional layer to what we do and the kind of healing that is coming out of this."

Lukaniec, who is also Wendat but grew up in Connecticut, said Project Yawenda's guaranteed funding helped create momentum to reconstruct the language using historical documentation from the 17th and 18th centuries written by Recollect and Jesuit missionaries in comparison to other Iroquoian languages like Mohawk, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, Oneida, and Onondaga. 

All of the content that was reconstructed was used for training language teachers and in 2010, language courses for adults were offered and curriculum was introduced to children at the local elementary school and daycare.

While dozens of community members have taken the courses in the last decade, Lukaniec said they don't consider themselves fluent speakers yet, even those teaching the language.

"We're all beginners but we have to start somewhere," said Lukaniec.

"What we're trying to do right now is to strategize how are we going to build on that. And there's no easy answer to that."

A lot still needs to be done, she says, to build up their proficiency — and that could take generations.

One of the barriers has been funding since the SSHRC grant concluded. Most of their support comes as project-based funding through Canadian Heritage's Aboriginal Languages Initiative.

While it's allowed for the creation of an online dictionary, as well as a soon-to-be-released mobile app and series of children's books, Lukaniec said there's no funding for recurrent expenses.

"You can't pay people their regular salary; you can't pay for programming that's in any school system. So you have to come up with these projects that are new and shiny," she said.

"That actually slows us down in what we do, what we need to be doing, which is focusing on curricula and building resources in order to create speakers."

Finding their true identity

Arakwa Siouï, 32, and her family were among the first group of community members to take the language classes in 2010.

"For me, it was like to find my true identity. It was to be more involved in the culture, also to know better where I am coming from and where I am going," she said.

Siouï knows revitalizing the language will be a slow process, but her dream and that of many others in the community is to one day have families speaking Wendat fluently, at home and throughout the community.

"It's a big dream but we need dreamers," said Siouï. "We need people to be truly involved and invested."

One of the ways she helps spread the language is through a Facebook page Tsiweyih iyawendou'tenh and Facebook group Honrontonhk.

"It's where people can ask questions and ask for files, documents and also videos and audio," she said.

"I just wanted the language to be accessible and available for everyone, not only the people that are living in Wendake."

'We've climbed more than we can see'

Following the end of the five-year grant, the Centre de développement de la formation et de la main-d'œuvre (CDFM) in Wendake has held the mandate to safeguard, transmit, promote and disseminate Huron-Wendat language and culture. 

Marcel Godbout, cultural agent and language teacher at CDFM, said in the last decade, they've continued to develop curriculum for the elementary schools, adult education, band council employees, and offer community classes every winter during the evenings. Last year, they also offered a distance learning course for Wendat living in Montreal.

He said the biggest challenge they face now is to develop more advanced speakers. He views the revitalization process as a hike up a steep mountain.

"It's a real challenge every day for our nation, but we're very proud because we continue," he said.

"Sometimes you stop and the top of the mountain seems so high and far away, but when you look back and see the trail that you've done, we've climbed more than we can see. But we're so focused on the top that we don't remember where we've come from when we started this adventure."

CBC Indigenous is highlighting a few of the many diverse Indigenous languages that exist across the country. Read more from the Original Voices project.