“I think people should be aware that these languages only come from Canada. They’re the first ones spoken here,” said Lorena Fontaine, the Indigenous studies department head at the University of Manitoba. “It’s important to highlight that these languages are endangered.”

Fontaine said in the current education system, students are learning English and French at the expense of their own ancestral languages.

For the full story, please visit CTV Winnipeg.

“They have been shamed for expressing anything that was affiliated with their respective languages or cultures or identities … along with other colonial interferences with Indigenous peoples, [it] has led to a situation where there are not as many Indigenous, fluent language speakers as we would like,” said Frank Deer with the University of Manitoba, who is Kanien’kehá:ka from Kahnawake, Que.

In order to correct that, Deer says, Indigenous people need to be able to learn the languages that reflect their identities.

To read the full article please visit CBC Manitoba.