Indigenous languages in this school · in preparation

Michif — the Language of the Métis Nation

The language the Métis people made their own — born where French and Cree met, and now among the most endangered languages on the continent.

In preparation — in partnership with the Métis Nation's own speakers. The goal is the whole collection in Michif: every book to read and to hear, here and in the school. Nothing is published until they have guided and reviewed it.

The language

Michif emerged in the early nineteenth century in the fur-trade world of the Red River: its nouns are overwhelmingly Métis French, its verbs Plains Cree, and both grammars survive whole inside it — linguists call it the most remarkable mixed language they know. The Métis call themselves Otipemisiwak, the free people, and Michif is their voice. It has no single standard spelling; its speakers wrote it as they heard it, each their own way, and that freedom is itself part of the record.

Honesty requires the hard numbers: the 2021 census counted 1,800 native speakers; scholarly estimates of fluent speakers run under 1,000, nearly all of them elders. UNESCO classifies Michif as critically endangered, and no published Bible in Michif has been found in the record this programme searched. The other peoples in this doorway series already hold scripture in their tongues; the Métis hold the language itself — and very few hands still hold it.

In this school

In this school, the place of Michif is being prepared on the same terms as the library's: no Michif lesson, reader, or word list will be made here until Métis educators have guided and reviewed it. Stated plainly: no Michif immersion school and no credited Michif secondary curriculum exists yet — this is the emptiest school tier in the whole doorway series. If the Métis governments wished it, this is the clearest place in the school where a reviewed offering could serve without duplicating anything, because there is nothing here to duplicate. When the door opens, it opens whole — every level of learning, to read and to hear, in the school as in the library.

Their own schools and teachers

University of Saskatchewan — Certificate in Indigenous Languages: Michif (30 credits), qualifying teachers to the province's standard
Gabriel Dumont Institute (Saskatoon) — Michif dictionaries, apps, children's books, and curriculum development
Métis Nation—Saskatchewan — Michif Speakers Bureau; summer youth Michif camp at Batoche Days; a Michif training program for educators
Louis Riel Institute (Winnipeg) — beginner lessons in Michif and Michif French for families and adults
Stated honestly: no Michif immersion school or credited secondary curriculum was found — the tier is empty, and is recorded empty

Learn Michif in writing

This room opens first for learning to read and write — and it begins with an honest statement: Michif has never had one standard spelling. Its speakers wrote it as they heard it. What stands here is how the Métis Nation's own institutes write it today, and the doors to their teaching.

The writing

No single standard — by the language's own history

Michif emerged in the fur-trade world with no academy and no imposed orthography; speakers historically wrote it phonetically, each in their own way. Any single chart presented as “the Michif alphabet” would be an invention, and none stands here.

The Gabriel Dumont Institute's dictionaries

The working standards in use are the spellings of the Métis Nation's own published dictionaries, each made with its speakers: the Heritage (Southern) Michif dictionary, translated and narrated by Elder Norman Fleury (over 11,500 words), and the Northern Michif dictionary of Vince Ahenakew (over 18,000 words) — both kept by the Gabriel Dumont Institute in its Virtual Museum of Métis History and Culture, with apps for learners.

Three Michif languages

The Institute names three: Southern Michif, Northern Michif, and Michif-French. Each is written in its own community's practice, and the Manitoba Métis Federation's Michif Language Program carries Manitoba's own materials.

Practice

No practice sheet stands here, because there is no one Michif spelling for an outsider to hand out. The writing is learned from the dictionaries and teachers above, in the spelling of the community that speaks it.

Learn from their own teachers

Gabriel Dumont Institute — Michif Resources — the Métis Nation's own institute — its Michif dictionaries, phrase primers, apps, and children's books
The Heritage Michif Dictionary — Virtual Museum of Métis History and Culture — Elder Norman Fleury's dictionary, with every word narrated — look up a word and hear it spoken

The writing is the people's own gift to their learners. The words of the books wait for the partnership.

Hear Michif today

These voices are the Métis people's own, published by their own teachers and stations. The link takes you to their house; nothing of their voice is copied here.

Gabriel Dumont Institute — Michif resources — the Métis-governed institute's narrated dictionaries: Heritage Michif's 11,500 words narrated by Norman Fleury, Northern Michif's 18,000 by Vince Ahenakew
Learn Michif by Listening — at the Virtual Museum of Métis History and Culture: the guide and all the audio from the original CD, free
Amelia Douglas Institute — Michif Language Videos — Métis Nation BC's Elder video library: Elders speaking Southern and Northern Michif and Michif-French
Louis Riel Institute lessons — the Manitoba Métis Federation's own lessons on its YouTube channel

There is no Michif radio station; Michif is heard today in lessons, dictionaries and Elder videos — the doors above.

An open invitation

Teachers: if you teach Michif — in a community school, an immersion nest, a college, or at a kitchen table — this school asks for your guidance before it makes a single lesson. In this collection the holy names are never invented: what the Creator is called in a language is for its own speakers to give, and the spelling of every text is theirs to settle. Write to the publisher at [email protected].

The doors are the Métis National Council and the provincial Métis governments, with the Gabriel Dumont Institute and the Louis Riel Institute carrying the language work.

To hear it

When Michif opens here, it will be heard as well as read — in its own voice, spoken and recorded by Michif speakers. Until then this door is silent in Michif on purpose: the first voice heard in it should be the people's own.

The other doors

This doorway carries no advertising.