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In this article the author argues that the varieties of English that Indigenous poets in Canada are bringing to the page indicate their concern to serve Indigenous peoples' purposes rather than worrying first and foremost about following the rules of standard Canadian English (SCE). Moreover, their language practice can thus be understood as a form of linguistic self-government. The article documents the mixing of Cree, Michif, and English languages in Indigenous communities and reviews evidence of how teachers are responding to this mixing. It then argues for acceptance of "Creenglish" and "Michiflish," linguistic hybrids of English and Cree and of English and Michif, the Métis language, respectively. It does so on the basis of evidence that Creenglish acts as a stepping stone to language mastery and because Indigenous poets in Canada are using these varieties of English in creative and politically important ways. After detailing the multiple functions that Creenglish and Michiflish are serving in the poetry, this study considers specific instances of use in the work of Cree and Cree-Métis writers Louise Halfe/Sky Dancer, Maria Campbell, Gregory Scofield, and Neal McLeod.
Toward Indigenous Linguistic Self-Government
Cree and Cree-Métis writers Louise Halfe/Sky Dancer, Maria Campbell, Gregory Scofield, and Neal McLeod use their own culturally specific Indigenous Englishes to record Indigenous experiences on the page, showing themselves focused on catching the rhythms, textures, and vocabulary - the sound and spirit - of how their people speak and the nuances of their thought rather than being focused on making their English conform to the rules of standard Canadian English (SCE). In doing so, they exhibit what I call linguistic self-government after reading what Stl'atl'imx poet-scholar Cole (2006) has to say about language in his poetically written scholarly book Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing: Coming Home to the Village.
In this book, which Indigenizes both scholarly practices and academic English, Cole (2006) takes his readers on a verbal voyage through multiple contact zones of colonizers and colonized. In the process, he challenges Anglo-Canadian society's control over English through that society's textual apparatuses of dictionaries and grammars and the academic institutions through which the authority of these texts is principally realized.
As a non-Indigenous teacher-scholar of decolonizing literatures around the world, I acknowledge that I participate in...