1The Importance of Protecting and Revitalising Indigenous Languages in CanadaPeople use languages to communicate with others, but a language is not only a meansof communication. Because a language has been enriched by absorbing its speakers’
knowledge of survival and emotion for a long time, it became what reflects its speakers’
cultures, traditions, customs and the whole history inclusively. Also, it is what determines theidentity of people who speak it. Furthermore, from a language, people can learn the connectionof their ancestors and surroundings, and how they survived. Forfeit of a language means losing
the people’s identity itself because it is the connection to their own heritages. It also leads todisintegration of the community. In Canada, throughout most of the 19th century to 20thcentury, the Canadian government had an Aboriginal assimilation policy epitomised by theresidential schools that had a massive impact on First Nations people, and the impact still
remains as a source of many serious issues in Indigenous Canadian societies; one of the issues
is that Indigenous languages are at risk of disappearing. The assimilation policy had
demolished Indigenous languages and some of them were actually lost. Indigenous people havebeen struggling to establish their identities and connection to their own community.
Preservation of these endangered languages is to be urgent, and the Canadian government must
comprehensively support the activities by First Nations to retrieve them. The Canadiangovernment must enact an Aboriginal Languages Act to restore honour of Indigenous people,
support them to establish their community, and maintain the diversity of the language andculture in Canada.
Restoring Honour of Indigenous People by Revitalising Aboriginal Languages
Preserving and revitalising endangered Indigenous languages directly means restoring
the honour of Indigenous people which have been destroyed by the Canadian government’s

2assimilation policy. In residential schools, Aboriginal students were taught that their own
languages were savage and their culture was inferior; however, in fact, there is no superior orinferior culture or language. Each culture has its unique aspects, and language is anencyclopedia that has all knowledge of its speakers. Even if the meaning of the word is lost, it
may be possible to formally perform traditional events, but the skeletal tradition in which theword is snarled is just a shell and meaningless. Loss of the language that has supported theinheritance of tradition and culture is the complete elimination of the Indigenous people'shonour. Indigenous culture is now used as a tourism resource in Canada. Souvenir shops sell
Indigenous art, and the Indigenous totem pole has become a major tourist destination. Whileusing Indigenous culture as a source of funding for tourism, the government of Canada seems
to be less active in rebuilding the Indigenous languages which are the foundation of the culture.
McIvor1 (2019) indicated that, "currently there is no federal plan or infrastructure to support
the continuation or development of Indigenous languages" (p. 15). Without continuous efforts
not only from inside of Indigenous communities but also outside of it to revitalise Indigenouslanguages, dominant languages, which are English and French in Canada, would easily drive
the Aboriginal languages to the edge of extinction. Despite the fact many Indigenouscommunities have been putting efforts such as immersion programmes in schools to restore
their languages, the number of fluent speakers is not growing much due to lack of opportunities
to use the Indigenous languages outside of the schools. It is obvious that active support by the
Canadian government has a significant role. Using Aboriginal art as an exhibition for tourists
or applying Indigenous words to the name of a place is equivalent to exploiting of Indigenous
people, just as the assimilation policies and Indigenous labour exploitation in the past. The3

Canadian government should be engaging more actively and supporting Indigenous language
education in schools.
Support Indigenous People to Establish Their Community
Supporting Indigenous acts to revitalise their languages is also closely related tohelping them to recreate their communities. The word “identity” means who the person is, andidentity is established by what background they have including what language the person
speaks. A language is also deeply ingrained in a community and what forms it; a language
builds a sense of solidarity among the people and strengthens community cohesion. After
Indigenous people in Canada lost their languages due to the residential school system,
residential school survivors have been struggling to reconnect to their own First Nations’community because of their loss of identity. Although the boarding school system is alreadyabolished, the issues derived from it have been negatively impacting Indigenous people andtheir communities. Residential school survivors have trauma because of neglect and abuse atresidential schools and it is hurting the survivors' children as well. Comprehensive
community-based support is needed to resolve this issue, and to that end, it is essential toregain their lost identity and rebuild the Indigenous community, including the revival oflanguage. Peterson (2018) described that, “Experiential learning was built into daily family
life. And that’s how traditions are passed on, that’s how things are passed on.” as well as“Teaching and learning took place while different generations involved in traditional activities”(p. 34). It is clear ensuring Indigenous people have access to activities to interact with eachother across generations at the community level will be necessary and the Canadiangovernment is responsible for revitalising endangered Indigenous languages because the4

residential school survivors have been eager to pass down their Aboriginal languages andculture to posterity (Fontaine, 2017).
The Significance of Linguistic and Cultural Diversity
If people think of language as just a communication tool, it is actually more efficient tohave only one language. It would have been easy to communicate with each other if only one
language was spoken in this world. No matter where people go, they would not be worried
about the language barrier and this seems useful; however, is such a world wealthy? Canada isoften described as a multicultural country. Canadians emphasise that a lot of different cultures
are co-existing in the nation, yet Indigenous cultures have been underappreciated. When alanguage is lost, its culture-specific knowledge and its own worldview will be forgotten.
Language has a role as a communication tool, and it also plays a role of a basis for knowledge,
thoughts and emotions. People recognize the world by language, make various thoughts, andexercise their emotions and sensibilities, which means that languages ​as the basis ofknowledge, thoughts and emotions should be diverse. When people learn words of a different
language, it stimulates intellectual curiosity and leads to the accumulation of knowledge. Sucha world is a prosperous world, and for this purpose the Indigenous languages ​should also bepreserved. Indigenous languages are particularly closely related to nature. Mi’kmaq, one of theFirst Nations in Canada, incorporates outdoor education into their Indigenous language
immersion programme; “Outdoor education is needed; the educators agree that the purpose oflearning the language is because it is useful in saying the words describing mother earth.”(Julian, 2016, p. 153). It is profitable not only for Indigenous society but also other5communities in Canada because restoring Indigenous languages ​may be an important clue forthose in modern society that values coexistence and protection with nature.
Each individual has a unique heritage and they should be able to be proud of it. First
Nations cultures, which once were disregarded by European settlers, now need to be thrived
again because multiculturalism and diversity is what people value in Canada. Diversity canenrich the nation in many ways. The government of Canada needs to address the ongoingissues related to Indigenous societies including the revitalisation of their languages. By
accomplishing this, Canada could truly claim that the country values fairness, diversity andequity.

6References
Fontaine, L. S. (2017). Redress for linguicide: Residential schools and assimilation in Canada.
British Journal of Canadian Studies, 30(2), 183-204.
https://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=07d43e63-9463-4ad
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Julian, A., & Denny, I. (2016). Kina’muanej Knjanjiji’naq mut ntakotmnew tli’lnu’ltik (In theforeign language, let us teach our children not to be ashamed of being Mi’kmaq) . In
Education, 22(1), 148-160. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1246779.pdf
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https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1238542.pdf
Peterson, S. S., Jang, S. Y., San Miguel, J., Styres, S., & Madsen, A. (2018). Infusing
Indigenous knowledge and epistemologies: Learning from teachers in northern
Aboriginal head start classrooms. McGill Journal of Education, 53(1), 26-46.
https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/mje/2018-v53-n1-mje04315/1056281ar.pdf
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Truth and Reconciliation
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http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf