Michif

rdf:langString Michif

rdf:langString Michif

rdf:langString Michif

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rdf:langString Métis communities in the Prairies; mostly Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Northwestern Ontario, Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota

rdf:langString Michif (also Mitchif, Mechif, Michif-Cree, Métif, Métchif, French Cree) is one of the languages of the Métis people of Canada and the United States, who are the descendants of First Nations (mainly Cree, Nakota, and Ojibwe) and fur trade workers of white ancestry (mainly French and Scottish Canadians). Michif emerged in the early 19th century as a mixed language and adopted a consistent character between about 1820 and 1840. The word Michif is from a variant pronunciation of the French word "Métis". Some Métis people prefer this word (Michif) to describe their nationality when speaking English and use it for anything related to Métis people, including any languages they happen to speak. According to the Gabriel Dumont Institute (GDI), the word "Michif", when used for a language, is used to describe at least three distinct types of speech. "Northern Michif" (in Saskatchewan) is essentially a variety of Cree with a small number of French loanwords. "Michif French" is a variety of Canadian French with some Cree loanwords and syntax (word order). "Michif" used without any qualification can also describe the mixed language which borrows heavily from both Cree and French. According to theories of self-determination and self-identification, the GDI refers to all of these speech varieties as "Michif" because many Métis community members use the term that way, even though these varieties are widely different in their linguistic details. The remainder of this article deals primarily with the mixed language that has many features from both French and Cree. The number of Michif speakers is estimated at fewer than 1,000; it was probably double or triple this number at the close of the 19th century, but never much higher. Currently, Michif is spoken in scattered Métis communities in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada and in North Dakota in the U.S., with about 50 speakers in Alberta, all over age 60. There are some 230 speakers of Michif in the United States (down from 390 at the 1990 census), most of whom live in North Dakota, particularly in the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. There are around 300 Michif speakers in the Northwest Territories, northern Canada. Michif combines Cree and Métis French (Rhodes 1977, Bakker 1997:85), a variety of Canadian French, with some additional borrowing from English and indigenous languages of the Americas such as Ojibwe and Assiniboine. In general, Michif noun phrase phonology, lexicon, morphology, and syntax are derived from Métis French, while verb phrase phonology, lexicon, morphology, and syntax are from a southern variety of Plains Cree (a western dialect of Cree). Articles and adjectives are also of Métis French origin but demonstratives are from Plains Cree. The Michif language is unusual among mixed languages, in that rather than forming a simplified grammar, it developed by incorporating complex elements of the chief languages from which it was born. French-origin noun phrases retain lexical gender and adjective agreement; Cree-origin verbs retain much of their polysynthetic structure. This suggests that instead of haltingly using words from another's tongue, the people who gradually came to speak Michif were fully fluent in both French and Cree. The Michif language was first brought to scholarly attention in 1976 by John Crawford at the University of North Dakota. Much of the subsequent research on Michif was also related to UND, including four more pieces by Crawford, plus work by Evans, Rhodes, and Weaver.

rdf:langString Mixed

rdf:langString mich1243

rdf:langString Michif

rdf:langString crg

rdf:langString Michif

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