There are over 70 Indigenous languages spoken by First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples across Canada. Each one is unique and valuable, and all have the inherent right to thrive. Indigenous languages have evolved over millenia with the lands and waterways from which they originate and contain knowledge and guidance about how people can live in a healthy relationship with the Earth and all her beings. They encode ecological wisdom, sustainability practices in terms of natural resource management, and center values such as respect and reciprocity that teach each generation how to develop and maintain relational ways of knowing and being in the world.
Unfortunately, many are at risk of going dormant, in large part as a result of the residential school system which deliberately worked to destroy Indigenous languages and cultures, rupturing natural processes of intergenerational language transmission.
The situation in Canada has its parallels around the world. Of the approximately 6,700 languages worldwide, 40 percent are at risk of going dormant – and many of those most at risk are Indigenous. To raise a global call to action for the protection of Indigenous languages, the United Nations declared the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032). UNESCO is the lead agency for its implementation.
Currently there are two Nation Action Plans in Canada for the Decade: one by the Assembly of First Nations and once by the Government of Canada. The Canadian Commission for UNESCO, with the support and guidance of its 18-member working group, is engaged in supporting efforts to maintain, revitalize and promote Indigenous languages, as a key component of CCUNESCO’s commitment to see the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) fully implemented in Canada.
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