Description
A hands-on guide for parents and caregivers to develop best practices in revitalizing and teaching Cree to young children.
In nehiyawetan kikinahk / Speaking Cree in the Home, Belinda Daniels and Andrea Custer provide an introductory text to help families immerse themselves, their children, and their homes in nehiyawewin—the Cree language.
Despite the colonial attacks on Cree culture, language, and peoples, Custer and Daniels remind readers that the traditional ways of knowing and transferring knowledge to younger generations have not been lost and can be revived in the home, around the table, every day.
nehiyawetan kikinahk / Speaking Cree in the Home is an approachable, hands-on manual that helps to re-forge connections between identity, language, family, and community—by centering Indigenous knowledge and providing Cree learners and speakers with a practical guide to begin their own journey of reclaiming and revitalizing Cree in the home.
Readers are guided through methods for language learning, the basics of reading Cree and Standard Roman Orthography, pronunciation of vowels, engaging language-learning games, and examples of high-frequency words and phrases that can easily be incorporated into daily routines and taught to children young and old.
Andrea Custer is Woodland Cree and a fluent Cree speaker who grew up in wapâwikoscikanihk, also known as Pelican Narrows. She has a BA in Indigenous Studies from First Nations University, a secondary level BEd teaching degree from the University of Alberta, and a MEd from the University of Saskatchewan in Indigenous Land-Based Education. Andrea currently works at First Nations University as a Cree language lecturer.
Belinda Daniels began a journey in language recovery and now teaches others how to teach an Indigenous second language with the Canadian Indigenous Language and Development Institute. She is the founder of the non-profit nêhiyawak Language Experience Inc. Foreword by Solomon Ratt and illustrated by Lana Whiskeyjack. Solomon Ratt is from āmaciwīspimowinihk (Stanley Mission, SK) and is now an Associate Professor of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature at First Nations University of Canada.
Solomon Ratt is a first-language speaker of the th-dialect from Stanley Mission, Saskatchewan. Lana Whiskeyjack is a multidisciplinary treaty iskwew artist from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, Treaty Six Territory, Alberta.
PB Version is available.