A really charming little song from Catherine Moise of Lac Brochet who made up her own Cree words to the tune of Mother Maybelle Carter’s You are my Flower – and had her daughter Lisa post it on Facebook,. People call Mother Maybelle a treasure: obviously Catherine Moise is another! Thanks to Christine Ravenis for sharing on Facebook, and to Solomon Ratt for transcribing and translating Catherine’s words!

From the 2016 community ice show in Calling Lake!
I didn’t discover this little piece of magic until January, so I’ve held it to share on its anniversary in 2017. I can’t wait to see what Lance and his Calling Lake crew get up to this year.

To all of them, and to all of you:

nipakosîyimonân anohc ta-miyopayihikoyêk êkwa mîna ôma kâ-pê-oski-askîwik
ᓂᐸᑯᓰᔨᒧᓈᐣ ᐊᓄᐦᐨ ᑕᒥᔪᐸᔨᐦᐃᑯᔦᐠ ᐁᑿ ᒦᓇ ᐆᒪ ᑳᐯᐅᐢᑭᐊᐢᑮᐏᐠ
Wishing you good things to happen today and in the coming year.

If you’re in the area, be sure not to miss this year’s Christmas Dinner and Show at Calling Lake. If you learn only one Cree word before you go, make sure it’s mâmaskâc! (Congratulations, Lance and crew: I’m sure you’ll knock their socks off!) Contact Lance for more information at 780-891-8204, or check the FaceBook Calling Lake Community Event Page.  

Thanks to Solomon Ratt for allowing the Cree Literacy Network to share his 2018 calendar, complete with his own original illustrations. Following his request, we will post one image at the beginning of each month. For those who like to plan a little further in advance, a link to a complete pdf is included here:
Y- and Th-Dialect:

2018Calendar

mitho-ocîmi-kîsikanisik!       ᓂᑐ ᐅᒌᒥᑮᓯᑲᓂᓯᐠ   (th)

miyo-ocêhtowi-kîsikanisik!   ᒥᔪ ᐅᒉᐦᑐᐏᑮᓯᑲᓂᓯᐠ    (y)

Happy Kissing Day!

Best wishes for 2018 to one and all: Here are some great big (virtual) kisses for everyone engaged in the labour of love that is promoting and revitalizing the Cree language! May your year be filled with joyful successes! (Thanks to Solomon Ratt for the audio!)

Image source (and recipe):
https://www.manataka.org/page1889.html

âniski-kiskinwahamâkêk, tâpiskôc mîkiwahp, matotisân êkwa tipiskâwi-pîsim

ᐋᓂᐢᑭᑭᐢᑭᓌᐦᐊᒫᑫᐠ, ᑖᐱᐢᑰᐨ ᒦᑭᐘᐦᑊ, ᒪᑐᑎᓵᐣ ᐁᑿ ᑎᐱᐢᑳᐏᐲᓯᒼ

Teach from generation to generation, just like the tipi, the sweatlodge and the moon

Thanks to Ramona Washburn for adding the QR code on the image below: If you print the image with the QR code, anyone can use a QR app on your cell phone to “hear” the audio.

In this post, we assemble 12 motivational posters in Cree from Solomon Ratt, all with QR codes (supplied by Ramona Washburn), so that (with the help of a cell phone app), the posters can actually read themselves aloud! They print out beautifully on 11×17 paper – so please, help yourself, and keep speaking Cree!

An earlier version of this post (updated to include all 12 posters and audio you can play here without the QR app) can be found here: http://creeliteracy.org/2017/11/20/eight-great-ways-to-help-yourself-learn-cree-solomon-ratt-th-dialect-audio/

Thanks to Wayne Jackson and to Janell Mistik Barrenda for sharing some beautiful videos recently on Facebook that teach about verbs. I’ll be writing more about each of them in future posts (with thanks), because, in Cree, verbs really are the centre of everything. And that’s a kind-of-complicated lesson that beginners sometimes overlook. I’m using this post to begin to explain why.

In a recent online chat, a beginner wrote something like “niya mîcisow mîcisowin” to mean “I eat food”. When I tried (as a slightly-more-experienced beginner) to explain that he needed a different form of the verb, he answered, “I’m just learning the words for now”.

What he had done seems perfectly reasonable: he got a dictionary and looked up the three English words “I,” “eat,” and “food” – and he copied out the “headword” for each one.

The dictionary entries might have looked like this:

• niya (Pronoun, PrA) I, me, mine
• mîcisow (Verb, VAI) s/he eats, s/he has a meal
• mîcisowin (Noun, NI-1) meal; eating, eating habits, food

So his sentence was perfect, right?

Not quite.

Cree and English are different kinds of languages. English is “isolating”: it likes having a separate word for everything. It’s like a picky eater: the peas shouldn’t touch the potatoes! Cree, on the other hand, is “polysynthetic”: it likes things connected. More like stew (if we keep the food analogy going) – only better organized. Nouns usually stand on their own, but verbs are made up of pieces put together like Lego. Sometimes a whole sentence in English is “just a word” in Cree.

If we look at a Cree verb table, and compare the English translations, we start to see how English leads us to think this way. In English, we only need two verb forms: “eat” and “eats” (and you only need the form “eats” once!) But Cree needs a different combination of suffixes and prefixes for every person in singular and plural forms – though the “verb stem” (mîciso-) stays the same. And, in Cree, the idea of eating a meal is also incorporated into the verb, so the adding the noun mîcisowin – in this case – is not even necessary!

First-language speakers have all of these beginning and ending parts hard-wired in their brains, but beginning Cree learners need to learn what the pieces are. Tables like this one – called “verb paradigms” can help learners to see those pieces in an organized way. And if you learn the pattern for one verb, it works again and again for different verb stems of the same type.

As Wayne Jackson – a fully fluent Native speaker – explains at about the 10 minute mark in this video lesson – seeing a verb paradigm written out for the first time can rock your world.

My beginner friend might feel cheated by the dictionary for leading him astray – but print dictionaries – in any language – are forced to choose one main form to list as a headword (linguists sometimes call this form a “lemma”) – and language students almost always have to refer to a separate reference grammar or a book of verb paradigms to help figure out the details.

In our example, the online Cree dictionary chooses mîcisow as its head word for two reasons:

1. it is the closest in form to the naked verb stem mîciso- (that is the verb stem alone without any suffixes or prefixes), and,
2. it is still an actual word on its own (there’s a whole different kind of confusion that can arise when dictionaries select incomplete forms as their lemma!)

For Cree, the simplest verb forms – the forms closest to the naked verb stem – are third person singular (3s) forms. So whenever you look up a verb from English, the Cree form listed will mean “he/she _____s”. (And you need extra information – a whole assortment of Lego, if you will – to build proper verb forms for other persons in singular or plural).

((Full disclosure: in many cases it is the command, or “imperative” form that is closest to the naked verb stem – but for some verb types, imperative forms (“be red,” for example) just don’t make sense. And dictionaries rely on consistency to be useable. But that’s another story.))

As long as Cree is all about the verbs, students will need to learn all of the prefix/suffix combinations. *sigh* But there is help! Linguists (and teachers) rely on verb tables (or paradigms) to study (and teach) the patterns. There are some great old-school tools available to help us see how this works. One of the best – that is still available for purchase – is Freda Ahenakew’s Cree Language Structures: A Cree Approach. This link leads to Amazon, but you can also get it through good booksellers like McNally Robinson (in Winnipeg and Saskatoon), and Audrey’s Books (in Edmonton), and most Western Canadian university bookstores.

Amazing speakers and teachers like Wayne and Janell are working hard to make those tools more accessible and interactive – and in some future posts, I will talk more about their work, and how it can help language learners.

Another really useful tool is the itwêwina online dictionary, currently under development at the University of Alberta: http://sapir.artsrn.ualberta.ca/itwewina/ – through the marvels of 21st-century computer technology, we can look up dictionary forms, then click through to find complete paradigms, that will (eventually) show every possible form for every verb.

Thanks to Wayne Jackson for sharing this poster. To learn more about this camp, email nihithawkapisiwin@gmail.com

• kotâwîwi-pîsim / ᑯᑖᐑᐏᐲᓯᒼ (eclipse; literally: sun sinking under ground)
• wanitipiskipayiw / ᐘᓂᑎᐱᐢᑭᐸᔨᐤ (darken, suddenly get dark, be an eclipse)
• mētoni kihcinêkan-pisîm / ᒣᑐᓂ ᑭᐦᒋᓀᑲᐣ ᑎᐱᐢᑳᐃᐧᐲᓯᒼ (super moon)
• sîpihko-pisîm / ᓰᐱᐦᑯ ᑎᐱᐢᑳᐃᐧᐲᓯᒼ (blue moon)
• mihko-pisîm / ᒥᐦᑯ ᑎᐱᐢᑳᐃᐧᐲᓯᒼ (blood moon)

And here’s a link to NASA, so you can follow the science as well!

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/super-blue-blood-moon-coming-jan-31

Thanks to Solomon Ratt for allowing the Cree Literacy Network to share his 2017 calendar, complete with his own original illustrations. Following his request, we will post one image at the beginning of each month. For those who like to plan a little further in advance, a link to the complete pdf is included here:
Y- and Th-Dialect Version: 2018Calendar

mahti ka-wî-miyo-pimohtêhow ta-atamiskâkot kahkiyaw kâ-sawêyimikot otâniskôhâkana.

May he journey well and be welcomed with love by the ancestors.*

It’s hard to believe a year has now elapsed since the passing of this passionate and courageous keeper of Cree language and culture. Tyrone Tootoosis, Sr. left us on February 12th, 2017. As his friends and family prepare to feast his memory, we are grateful to acknowledge some of the vast legacy that Tyrone left for us.

Marius Paul, who attended university with Tyrone, passed on to us a Youtube Video that Tyrone created in 2012. The video consists of a collection of archival photos from Tyrone’s personal collection, and a dramatic narration in Cree, all labelled “Poundmaker”.

Although we at the Cree Literacy Network don’t know the precise details that surrounded the creation of this video, several members of our network have worked together to transcribe Tyrone’s words in SRO, and translate them into English. They are presented here along with the video for the benefit of those who would like to hear Tyrone’s voice and read along. A syllabic transliteration of the text also follows, along with a section from Norma Sluman’s 1967 dramatized Poundmaker biography.

We hope through this gesture to pay tribute to Tyrone’s importance as a cultural educator and language keeper. We also hope to help further share Tyrone’s  tribute to his direct ancestor, pîhtokahânapiwiyin (Poundmaker), who was the brother of Tyrone’s own Great-great-grandfather, Yellow Mudblanket. Finally, we also hope to create yet another small tool to support literacy in the Cree language and culture that Tyrone valued as highly as we do.

Reviewing the English translation, one member of the CLN observed that the text had an striking resemblance to the phrases often quoted – in English – as the final words of Poundmaker. The source of those words was identified as Norma Sluman’s 1967 biography, which she herself calls a dramatization. While we can’t know what Poundmaker actually said word-for-word in Cree, we do know that, like Norma Sluman, Tyrone had access to oral history about Poundmaker from John B. Tootoosis and all the greatest living authorities. Tyrone would have read the Sluman biography, but would also have heard the story again and again – in Cree – directly from the elders of his home reserve. These versions of the story would certainly have shaped the words he spoke in Cree while portraying Poundmaker in the 1998 television mini-series Big Bear – and perhaps this is the real purpose for which he prepared this audio/video presentation.

From Norma Sluman (1967) Poundmaker. Toronto: Ryerson Press, pages 295-296 (emphasis added to show words attributed to Poundmaker):

“I have been called many bad things since that day with General Middleton, but it was the white men who said such things, not my own people and that is all that has mattered to me. They put chains on me and shut me away, but they did not cut my hair or keep me very long because I think they know in their hearts that I had done nothing wrong. I was sick at heart when I came home for I could see that it all must begin again. The long, long fight for a better life for us in this land that once was ours.”

No one moved or made a sound. Poundmaker was quiet for a while. The people were in the shade and he was standing in the hot sunlight. For a moment he had a strange feeling that he was all alone, then Crowfoot moved a little so he could see them all again. It must be the heat making him so tired. “It would be so much easier just to fold our hands and not make this fight, to say, ‘I, one man, can do nothing.’ I grow afraid only when I see people acting and thinking like this. We all know the old story about the man who sat beside the trail too long, and then it grew over and he could never find his way again. We can never forget what has happened but we cannot go back. Nor can we just sit beside the trail.” 

He stopped speaking again. Sweat was beading his face and body. He looked again at the place where Crowfood sat but once again the sun was dazzling his eyes. He willed himself to go on. “Before the trouble came to our country I worked very hard to unite the Crees, but I know now that what I did was not enough. I know now that Blackfoot, Cree, Sarcee or Sioux – this does not matter any more. We must all become one people. Until we do that, putting aside old animosities, old jealousies, old rivalries, we will only help to subjugate ourselves. We will –”

He paused, trying to draw a deep breath and found that he could not. He could not go on, it was no use. He had to rest, to try to ease a hard pain that suddenly seemed to be exploding in his chest. Again he struggled for a breath but the pain was choking him and then somehow the earth moved and lurched hard against him and he struggled fiercely against it. the grass had closed over him and he felt it in his hands, that grass, so strong and green and good for the horses and buffalo to graze upon.

Update: CBC news report from Tyrone’s funeral, 16 February 2017.

*With thanks to Arok Wolvengrey for helping me put this beautiful thought from Candyce Paul into the Cree words he and his ancestors deserve. Thanks also to Arok Wolvengrey, Jean Okimâsis, Solomon Ratt, Ben Godden and Dorothy Thunder for persisting through the sadness of this loss to assist with transcription and translation.

Thanks to Ramona Washburn for sharing purchase details of this new app from Samson Cree Nation, and congratulations to everyone there who helped with its creation. I can’t wait to try it out!

“Maskosis Goes To School” Cree App by Samson Cree Nation is available for download: a real bargain at $10.00 from:

APPLE STORE LINK: (App)
Maskosis Goes to School by Samson Cree Nation
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/maskosis-goes-to-school/id1339889603?mt=8

GOOGLE PLAY STORE LINK: (Android Version)
Take a look at “Maskosis Goes to School”
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maskosis.school

A great opportunity for Regina residents – and for anyone who can view online streaming via Regina Public Library Facebook page.

What: Cree Language Instruction
When: Thursdays, February 22 – May 10, 2018
Total # of classes: 12 sessions (Weekly classes)
Time: 6:30 – 8:00 pm
Where: mâmawêyatitân centre – Multipurpose Room
Live Streaming on Social Media through the Regina Public Library 
Free to public.
All ages welcome.
No registration required.

For more information, email:
Nick Crighton ncrighto@regina.ca
Wendy Sinclair
wsinclair@reginalibrary.ca

Thanks to Solomon Ratt for allowing the Cree Literacy Network to share his 2018 calendar, complete with his own original illustrations. Following his request, we will post one image at the beginning of each month. For those who like to plan a little further in advance, a link to a complete pdf is included here:
Y- and Th-Dialect Version: 2018Calendar

Arok Wolvengrey, Jean Okimâsis and Simon Bird at Saskatoon’s Dr Freda Ahenakew Library, February 2017

Thanks to Arok for letting me share his recent Facebook rant about the relationship between writing, sound and meaning. Arok writes:

The best tools for learning spoken language (besides face-to-face interaction) involve video and/or audio files so people can actually hear the language. Spoken language equates sound with meaning. That is what people need to learn when speaking a language – the equation of sound and meaning. Anything else (such as writing) can be a distraction. Similarly, sign languages equate visual hand shapes and gestures with meaning. Trying to spell words out in sign language is a “long-cut” which is far less effective than using the meaningful gestures/signs themselves. The same can be said for written languages.

The problem with a writing system that tries to equate symbols to sound before getting to meaning is that it is distracting and takes the long way around. If it is only a tool for sound, it can never be standardized because people (speaking many variable dialects, all of which must be respected) will continue to sound things out every time they see a word (especially when that word is written differently every time anyone writes it), and will never develop actual literacy in the language because no single form will ever come to be recognized for the meaning it represents, only an approximation of sound. The best way to teach sound is with sound, not silent symbols on a page.

In order to help with literacy on the other hand, the best writing system equates complex symbols (consistent spelling of words) with meaning and has far less to do with sound. So when fluent speakers see a word spelled, they should know what it means instantly (and already know how it sounds in their dialect) without having to sound it out. Fluent English readers know what “knee” means without bothering to think about how the ‘k’ sound contributes to the pronunciation of the word only to discover it doesn’t contribute at all and then have to reject it every time. Fluent English readers know what ‘tomato’ means (whether they pronounce it [toMAYto] or [toMAHto], etc.) and don’t need to sound it out every time (or argue about the spelling when we do pronounce it differently). The one spelling works no matter the pronunciation. That’s why the English spelling system (rather than the English symbols) is so powerful – because everyone agrees on that link between spelling and meaning.

In essence, what I am saying is that spelling shouldn’t be used to teach sounds because if it is, then it can’t do the work that spelling is good for. Sounds should be used to teach sounds and these should be learned before spelling. In turn, sign language gestures and consistent written spelling should be used to teach communication in the ways they were designed for. With all the tools at our disposal now, we should be teaching sound with sound, leaving the (consistent) spelling in the background until such time that learners know enough of the spoken language that they can just learn spelling as the secondary means of communication that it is meant to be.

Thanks to Billy Joe Laboucan for letting me share this great little story. Mary Cardinal Collins calls it a great example of “mâmawohkamâtow sakâwiyiniw style” (cooperation, bush-(people)-style). And it would make a great story for kids. (Now, if he’d only record himself telling it again in Cree!)

One time when we traveling along in our wagon and a team of horses. The wagon was loaded down with us kids sitting on blankets in the back and mom and dad on the front seat, and dogs were tied behind with a couple of dogs running loose. They were dad’s hunters, a header and heeler.
Dad always had his 30-30 close at hand, leaning to his left on the corner of the wagon box; and luckily too, cuz’ a mule deer doe ran right across the wagon road in front of the horses. He handed the lines to my mom, picked up the rifle and fired clipping the left front leg of that running deer all in one motion. Then, the dogs were off chasing it into the bush to our left with my dad right behind them in hot pursuit.
My mom held the horses til they settled down. And in the quiet, we could hear the dogs barking and my dad shouting to them. Then we could hear them turn to the right in a large circle, and suddenly, the deer came running towards us with its front leg dangling as the hunting dogs nipped its heels. In a flash, my mom jumped off the wagon and grabbed its head and flipped it down, crimping its neck. I grabbed the reins just in case the horses moved in the commotion.
She shouted up to us on the wagon, “pītā mōhkomān!” (bring the knife!) Both my sisters were rummaging as quickly as they could in the grub box for my mom’s butcher knife, then my older sister, Cheechit jumped off the wagon with it and handed it to her as my mom struggled with the kicking deer, then she slit its throat, quickly killing it.
Right then, my dad came running out of the bush and yelled at the dogs, “kīyām’pik!” (Quiet!) Then finally, it grew quiet …
Then we all started laughing!
And my dad praised the two hunting dogs for bringing the deer right back to the wagon….
As he looked at my mom, who had already started skinning the deer, … we laughed even more.

This new work in neon is the creation of Cree artists Joseph Naytowhow, Kenneth T. Williams and lead artist Tony Stallard. It presents the words sîpiy mîna kîsik, meaning river and sky, in syllabics. It is scheduled to be displayed for the next three years, but there is a chance it could become a permanent installation.

Read the whole story from this link at MBC radio: https://www.mbcradio.com/2018/03/cree-art-piece-adorns-saskatoon-city-skyline

Joi Arcand’s Cree language installations in the form of business signage are not new (you can read more about an earlier one here), but her current work, showcased in the “Insurgence/Resurgence” installation currently on display at the at the Winnipeg Art Gallery comes with a great line:

‘The language wasn’t lost — it was taken. And we’re here to take it back.’

While I’m enjoying the coverage, I’m intrigued that there is no indication at all (in the written version of the story) of what the syllabics actually say. As Joi explains in the video, she hopes to challenge people to learn a bit for themselves.

View the video here: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/exhibitionists/in-huge-neon-joi-arcand-is-rewriting-everyday-signs-in-cree-1.4570256

In SRO transliteration, her neon sign reads ninohtê nêhiyawan: “I want to speak Cree”. I’m looking forward to struggling to decode all of the text on the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s enormous Tyndall stone staircase.

Cree Language & Cultural Gathering | March 23 – 25, 2018 | Fisher River Community Hall (Manitoba). It’s not clear who to contact for more information, but you could try messaging the Fisher River Cree Nation FaceBook Group: https://www.facebook.com/fisherrivercreenation/