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Accueil Dossiers Translation as a way to save Indigenous languages

T ranslation as a way to save Indigenous languages

Most Indigenous languages in Canada are in various stages of endangerment, while many others are no longer spoken, so one might

wonder why translation is even needed when Indigenous people increasingly speak English or French. But it is the very fact of having

arrived at this situation that makes the need for translation, both into and out of the majority languages, all the more urgent.

By Marguerite Mackenzie and Julie Brittain, Memorial University , Newfoundland and Labrador

A small number of Indigenous languages in Canada, among them Cree, Innu and Naskapi in Québec, and Innu in Labrador , remain relatively vital:

they are still being learned by children. Translation (from French or English) into these languages is useful – and often necessary – particularly in

legal, medical and resource-development contexts. Conversely , translation from Indigenous languages has become an important means of sharing

Indigenous culture and knowledge.

Regardless of the direction of translation, a significant factor about the above-mentioned languages, which belong to the Algonquian family , is that

they differ markedly in terms of word and sentence structure from either English or French. In these Indigenous languages, words can be very long,

and verbs in particular can contain a great deal of information. V erbs include reference to the subject, as shown in (1-3) below and, where relevant,

also to direct and indirect objects (1b,c). Adjectival or adverbial information may be included (2a,b), as well as reference to the means by which an

action comes about (3a,b).

Such differences pose particular challenges for the translation process as equivalencies are often not available.

Language communities

In all Indigenous language communities, older speakers are dying and younger speakers are at best bilingual in a majority language, but

increasingly monolingual in English or French. Moreover , many young people who still speak an Indigenous language have a more limited

Northern East Cree (Québec)

(1a) Akwâchimâu .

‘the wet snow sticks to snowshoes while a person is travelling’

(1b) Mûmâsâu .

‘s/he eats fish’

(1c) Miyâu .

‘s/he gives it to her/him, it (anim)’

(2) miyu - ~ miyw - = ‘well/good’

(2a) Miyumâkun .

‘it smells good’

(2b) Miywâchimâu .

‘s/he speaks well of her/him’

(3a) Pikunâ pit im .(-pit- = ‘perform an action by pulling’)

‘s/he tears a hole in it’

(3b) Pikunâ nim . (-n- = ‘perform an action using one's hands’)

‘s/he makes a hole in it with her/his hands’

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vocabulary and may even have a more restricted range of syntactic structures than older speakers. While the process that results in this restriction is

not well understood, it is thought to be due in part to a shift toward a sentence structure that is more English or French; for example,

âhkushtikuanâu : some younger speakers will say âhkushû ushtikuân 'her/his head hurts' instead of incorporating the noun into the verb as

âhku shtikua nâu 's/he has a headache'. Use of a two- word construction in place of the more complex single word would probably be judged by more

fluent older speakers as, if not exactly ungrammatical, lacking in the grammatical sophistication expected of an adult. This is because in Cree, body

parts form a class of noun that is generally incorporated into the verb to form a complex word.

In the communities where the authors work, the degree of education of speakers is highly variable, as schooling, mandatory only since the 1950s

and ‘60s, was mainly in residential schools, where children were forcibly cut of f from their families and language. The impact has been detailed most

recently in the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, especially created with the mandate to inform all Canadians about

what happened in Indian Residential Schools, which includes 97 calls to action for the Canadian government and public. T oday, community schools

struggle with a high rate of absenteeism and a low rate of high school completion. Highly educated speakers, fluent in one Indigenous language and

English or French, are consequently in high demand for work involving those languages, including translation work. Few have formal training in

translation, as it is not generally available.

Lack of resources

Compounding the issue of there being too few bilingual people to meet the demand for translators, the tools of the trade, so to speak, are as yet

lacking or , at best, are still works in progress. In the case of all Canadian Indigenous languages, reference materials – dictionaries and grammars –,

if they exist, are incomplete, and, to the authors’ knowledge, no thesaurus for any Indigenous language has been created. Existing dictionaries are

bilingual and, at most, have one or two sentences per entry to illustrate appropriate usage, whereas a comprehensive dictionary will have multiple

examples illustrating the semantic range of a given entry . An example the authors came across recently highlights the need for such resources: a

Cree speaker (incorrectly) used chikimû to refer to an occasion when he had been ‘stuck’ on a plane, unable to get of f for some time. However, the

Cree word (see 4 below) does not have the same semantic range as one of the English words that can be used to translate it:

It can’t be used in the way the speaker meant it, since it refers specifically to the act of attaching things physically , as in ‘sticking’ one thing to

another with glue.

These are difficult issues, and translators need resources to check the semantic range of the words s/he is seeking. Canada’ s Indigenous

languages have gone into decline so rapidly that there has not been enough time or funding to keep up with the demand for resources.

Paving the way for translation

Specialized translation into Indigenous languages comes with many challenges. Since every field has its own technical vocabulary , specialized

glossaries are needed. This involves the creation of many new words/phrases in Indigenous languages extensive work which requires the

collaboration of translators, specialists from the field, and often linguists. In Cree, Naskapi or Innu, for example, technical terms often translate best

as phrases, as shown in (5).

Other common candidates for translation into Indigenous languages include religious works (e.g., the Bible), government publications (e.g., books,

pamphlets, posters), and curriculum materials for schools which offer mother tongue education. In Canada, most materials are translations from

English or French. These fields may not have a highly technical vocabulary , but they often contain jargon that needs to be translated first into plain

language, and then into the Indigenous language.

Translation from an Indigenous language into English or French frequently involves an oral performance, which must first be properly transcribed. It

usually falls to the translator to do this work, a task requiring its own rigorous methodology , which we detail in Brittain and MacKenzie 2011. The

Naskapi of Kawawachikamach, a community 15 kilometres north-east of Shef ferville, Québec, are very keen to see their literature made available in

English alongside their own language, and they have provided ongoing funding for a team of older and younger speakers, along with linguists who

have studied the language, to carry out transcription, translation and publication of sound recordings from the 1960s. The linguists type in the

Roman alphabet and then convert to the syllabic writing system of the community , the older speakers clarify less-known vocabulary and grammatical

structures, the younger speakers provide translations in English for discussion, and the literal translations are then re-written in literary English,

matching the tone of the original speech. To date, six Naskapi/English story books have been published (Peastitute 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016a,b,

2017).

Political considerations

The issue of access to Indigenous cultural knowledge by outsiders through translation into majority languages is highly politicized in some

communities, and some Indigenous groups have taken a stand against translation being done at all. For example, Carrie Dyck, an Associate

Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Memorial University , describes this issue for Cayuga, an Iroquoian language, with respect to longhouse

religious teachings, which cannot be accessed by anyone who has not undertaken an apprenticeship to qualify as an orator on behalf of the

(4) chikimû

‘s/he, it (anim) is attached, stuck’

(5) Sedative 'A drug taken for its calming or sleep-inducing effect'

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community . Not all community members agree with the restriction, as many younger people can now understand the teachings only through

translation.

Toward the future

Even though Canada’ s Indigenous languages are declining at an alarming rate and many have already ceased being spoken, an increasing number

of communities are engaged in language recovery , a process in which translation has a crucial role to play . In many communities, younger people

are learning their languages as a second language and translation into the Indigenous language creates the materials needed to support this work

and promote literacy in the language. The large amount of material needed to promote fluent reading is often far beyond the scope and budget of a

community or organization. It has become common for existing children's literature, for instance, to be translated into Cree and Mi'kmaq, with the

permission of the author (e.g., books by Robert Munsch). The best use must be made of the limited resources that exist, chief among these being

fluent speakers, but there also needs to be better access to funding.

Marguerite Mackenzie and Julie Brittain are both professors at Memorial University, Newfoundland and Labrador’s University .

CITED WORKS

Brittain, Julie and Marguerite MacKenzie (201 1). “Translating Algonquian Oral T exts.” In Swann 2011, pp. 242-274.

Dyck, Carrie. (2011). “Should Translation Work Take Place? Ethical questions concerning the translation of First Nation languages. In Swann 201 1,

pp. 17-42.

Peastitute, John. (2017) Caught in a Blizzard and other stories told by Naskapi Elder John Peastitute. (Naskapi/English). Translated by Alma

Chemaganish & Silas Nabinicaboo, with literary translation by Julie Brittain, edited and annotated by Marguerite MacKenzie. Kawawachikamach,

QC: Naskapi Development Corporation. [See also Misti-Michisuw: The Giant Eagle and other stories (2016b), Umayichis: A Naskapi Legend

(2016a), Achan: Naskapi Giant Stories (2015), Chahkapas: A Naskapi Legend (2014), Kuihkwahchaw: Naskapi Wolverine Stories (2013) available

from lulu.com]

Swann, Brian. (2011). Editor. Born in the Blood: On Native American T ranslation , Native Literature of the Americas Series. Lincoln: University of

Nebraska Press.