List of endangered languages in Canada

An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use, generally because it has few surviving speakers. If it loses all of its native speakers, it becomes an extinct language. UNESCO defines four levels of language endangerment between "safe" (not endangered) and "extinct":[1] There are primarily eight languages that were spoken in Canada around 2010.

• Vulnerable
• Definitely endangered
• Severely endangered
• Critically endangered

Language	Users	Status	Comments	Ref
Algonquin language/Anishinàbemiwin [1]		Vulnerable	There are several dialects of the Algonquin language, generally grouped broadly as Northern Algonquin and Western Algonquin.
Aivilingmiutut language/Aivilik[1]		Vulnerable	Inuktitut or Inuvialuktun dialect.
Assiniboine language (Canada)[1]	150	Critically endangered	Also in the United States.
Atikamekw language[1]	6,165	Vulnerable	Divergent R-dialect of Western Cree. Closely related to Eastern Cree and Innu.
Blackfoot language/Siksiká (Canada)[1]	4,915	Definitely endangered	Southern Alberta, CA and Northern Montana, USA.[2]
Bungee language[1]	0-500	Critically endangered	Possibly extinct. Cree-Ojibwe-Scots-Gaelic creole language.
Carrier language/Dakeł[1]	1,270	Severely endangered
Cayuga language (Canada)[1]	61	Critically endangered	Split into 2 distinct groups, in Ontario and New York.
Central Ojibwe language[1]	8,000	Vulnerable
Chilcotin language/Tsilhqotʹin[1]	860	Severely endangered
Chipewyan language/Dene/Dënesųłiné[1]	11,325	Vulnerable	Athapaskan language in Canadian Subartic.[3] Not to be confused with Chippewa (Ojibwe).
Comox-Sliammon language/ʔayajuθəm[1]	47	Critically endangered	Mainland and Island dialects. Island dialect is extinct.
Dakota language (Canada)[1]	290	Critically endangered	Also in the United States.
Dane-zaa language/Beaver [1]	220	Definitely endangered
Dogrib language/Tłı̨chǫ [1]	1,735	Definitely Endangered
Eastern Cree language/James Bay Cree[1]	13,000	Vulnerable	Divided into 4 dialects.
Eastern Ojibwe language/Ojibwa[1]		Severely endangered
Gitxsan language[1]	1,020	Severely endangered
Gwich'in language (Canada)[1]	560	Severely endangered	Also spoken in Alaska.
Haisla language[1]	240	Critically endangered
Halkomelem language/Hul'qumi'num (Canada)[1]	100-260	Critically endangered	Three distinct Dialects. Also in the United States.
Han language (Canada)[1]	20	Critically endangered	Also in Alaska.
Heiltsuk language/Bella Bella[1]	60	Critically endangered
Innu language/Eastern Montagnais[1]	10,075	Vulnerable
Inuinnaqtun language[1]	1,310	Definitely endangered	Dialect of Inuvialuktun or Inuktitut.
Inuiuuk[4]	47	Critically endangered	Also known as Inuit Sign Language or Inuit Uukturausingit (IUR).
Inupiaq language/Alaskan Inuit (Canada)[1]	2,144	Severely endangered	Also in Alaska.
Kaska language[1]	240	Severely endangered	British Columbia and Yukon
Kivallirmiutut language/Kivalliq[1]		Vulnerable	Inuktitut or Inuvialuktun dialect.
Kutenai language[1]	345	Severely endangered	Also use Ktunaxa Sign Language. Also in the United States.
Kwak'wala language[1]	450	Critically endangered	4-5 distinct dialects. Also in the United States.
Lakota language (Canada)[1]		Critically endangered	2,100 speakers in the United States.
Lillooet language/St̓át̓imcets[1]	315	Severely endangered
Malecite-Passamaquoddy language (Canada)[1]	355	Definitely endangered	Composed of 2 dialects. Also in the United States.
Maritime Sign Language		Critically endangered
Maniwaki Algonquin language/Southern Anishinàbemiwin[1]		Severely endangered	Speakers at Maniwaki consider their language to be Southern Algonquin, though linguistically it is a dialect of Nipissing Ojibwa.
Michif language[1]	730	Critically endangered	Cree-French creole language. Also in the United States.
Mi'kmaq language/Migmaw(Canada)[1]	7,140	Vulnerable	Also in the United States.
Mohawk language/Kanienʼkéha (Canada)[1]	3,875	Definitely endangered	Also in the United States.
Moose Cree language/Ililîmowin[1]	3,000	Vulnerable	L-dialect of Western Cree.
Munsee language/Munsee Lenape/Ontario Delaware (Canada)[1]	2	Critically endangered	Unami language in the United States .
Naskapi language/Iyuw Iyimuun[1]	1,230	Vulnerable	Eastern Cree dialect that shares features with Innu.
Natsilingmiutut/Netsilik[1]		Vulnerable	Dialect of Inuvialuktun.
Nisga'a language[1]	470-1,500	Severely endangered	Nisga’a is very closely related to Gitxsan.
Nootka language/Nuu-chah-nulth[1]	130	Severely endangered
North Slavey language[1]	800	Definitely endangered
Northern Haida language[1]		Critically endangered	Divided into 2 dialects. Also in the United States.
Northern Tutchone language[1]		Definitely endangered
Northwestern Ojibwe language[1]		Vulnerable
Inuttitut/Nunatsiavummiutut/Nunatsiavut [1]		Vulnerable	Inuktitut dialect.
Nuxalk language/Bella Coola[1]	17	Critically endangered
Oji-Cree language/Severn Ojibwa[1]	13,630	Vulnerable
Okanagan language[1]		Definitely endangered	5 dialects. Also in the United States.
Oneida language (Canada)[1]	47	Critically endangered	Ontario, CA and Wisconsin, USA. [2]
Onondaga language (Canada)[1]	50	Critically endangered	Also in the United States.
Odawa language (Canada)[1]	360	Severely endangered	Also in the United States.
Plains Cree language[1]	34,000	Vulnerable	Y-dialect of Western Cree.
Plains Sign Talk		Critically Endangered
Potawatomi language (Canada)[1]		Critically endangered	Also in the United States.
Qikiqtaaluk nigiani language/South Baffin dialect[1]		Vulnerable	Inuktitut dialect.
Qikiqtaaluk uannangani language/North Baffin dialect[1]		Vulnerable	Inuktitut dialect.
Rigolet Inuktitut language [1]	0-3	Critically endangered	Inuktitut/Nunatsiavut/Inttitut dialect.
Sarcee language/Tsuutʼina[1]	150	Critically endangered
Saulteaux language/Nakawēmowin [1]	10,000	Vulnerable	Also known as Western or Plains Ojibwe.
Sechelt language[1]	7	Critically endangered
Sekani language[1]	200	Critically endangered
Seneca language (Canada)[1]		Critically endangered	Also in the United States.
Shuswap language/Secwepemctsín[1]	200-1,190	Definitely endangered	Divided into 2 dialects.
Siglit dialect[1]		Severely endangered	Inuvialuktun dialect.
South Slavey language[1]	1,000	Definitely endangered
Southern Haida language[1]		Critically endangered	Divided into 2 dialects: Skidegate and Ninstints(extinct). Also in Alaska.
Southern Tutchone language[1]		Critically endangered
Squamish language/Sḵwx̱wú7mesh[1]	450	Critically endangered	1 native speaker left, 449 L2 learners.
Stoney language/Nakota/Nakoda[1]	3,200	Vulnerable
North Straits Salish language[1]	105	Severely endangered	Also in the United States. Divided into 6 dialects.
Swampy Cree language/Maskekon/Omaškêkowak[1]	1,805	Vulnerable	N-dialect of Western Cree.
Tahltan language[1]	45	Critically endangered
Thompson language/Nlaka'pamuctsin [1]	130	Severely endangered
Tlingit language (Canada)[1]	120	Critically endangered	Also in the United States.
Coast Tsimshian language/Sm'álgyax [1]		Critically endangered	Also in Alaska.
Tuscarora language/Skaròꞏrə̨ (Canada)[1]	3	Critically endangered	Also in the United States.
Upper Tanana language/Nabesna (Canada)[1]		Critically endangered	Also in Alaska.
Western Abenaki language/Wôbanakiôdwawôgan (Canada)[1]	14	Critically endangered	Divided into 5 dialects. East Abenaki is extinct. Also in the United States.
Woods Cree language/Bush Cree[1]	20,000	Vulnerable	TH-dialect pf Western Cree. Merged with Rock Cree.

Changes in Canadian Endangered Languages

Terminology

• Phonological Process: Patterns that young children use to simplify adult speech[5]
• Soundless Vowels: Inaudible, unvoiced vowels or syllables[2]
• Language Death: The death of the last speaker of a language[6]
• Phoneme: Sound syllable
• Contraction: Shortened version of a written or spoken word[7]
• Elision: Omission of a sound or syllable when speaking[8]
• Metatheses: the transposition (changing place) of sounds or letters in words[9]

Oneida (Iroquoian Language)

• Critically Endangered
• Visual Information/Cues teach the language[2]

There is a "phonological process," or patterns used to simplify speech[5] in the Oneida language that has been passed down for generations, this process is described as the loss of voicing in the vowel of the last syllable of a word.[2] This process is vital to the preservation of the language, and has been changing among the speakers, such that some speakers have introduced a degree of voiced vowels in these final forms, which poises additional stress on the small population of speakers.[2] The introduction in voicing the last syllable in words that typically are unvoiced is that it changes the traditional morphology of the language, pushing the original dialect towards language death, especially since the majority of speakers are older in age.

Blackfoot (Algonquian Language)

• Definitely Endangered
• Visual Information/Cues teach the language[2]

The Blackfoot language consists of the loss of voicing in the last syllable of a word, which is typically inaudible.[2] Certain inflections, or the use of inaudible vowels has been identified as "old Blackfoot" (traditional), and are not in frequent use by younger speakers.[2] Similarly, a minority of Blackfoot speakers use the "soundless" suffixes, which is pushing the traditional language towards more extreme language endangerment and potentially language death.[2]

Chipewyan (Athapaskan Language)

• Definitely Endangered
• Most speakers from Mid-to-late adulthood[3]

The Chipewyan language exhibits morphological characteristics that are far more complex than the majority of European languages.[3] This includes conditioning of tone and morphology of phonemes, as well as frequent contractions, elisions, metatheses, and consonantal substitutions.[3] Chipewyan is mainly endangered due to its complex structure, which makes it difficult to decipher the morphological code, as well as the fact that the majority of the speakers are in their mid-late adulthood.[3]

Assiniboine

• Critically Endangered
• Also called Nakoda or Hohe

Assinibone is one of the language divisions out of five main language divisions within the Dakotan group of the Siouan family. The sound of this language differs from the other languages in the group because it merges voiceless stops with voiced stops. There are reports that syllabics to have been used by Assinibone speakers. (A written character to represent a syllable). The Assiniboine language is spread over 2 communities in Canada, and is mainly used by older adults.

Central Ojibwe

• Definitely Endangered
• Also called Anishinaabemowin, Ojibway, and Chippewa

There are about 8,000 speakers in the central Ojibwe language, and it has been spread over 16 communities in Canada. The language is spoken from Ontario Canada to Manitoba. It is also spoken in places from Michigan to Montana next to the Great Lakes which is the home of the Ojibwe people. The language today is spoken by people over the age of 70. The people of the Ojibwe language note that double vowels in their language are treated as standing for unit sounds, therefore they are alphabetized after corresponding single values.

Lakota (Siouan Language)

• Critically Endangered
• Mutually intelligible with Dakota language

There are about 6,000 speakers in the Northern Plain States of North Dakota and South Dakota. Most native speakers are in their mid-50s.[10] There is a growing interest to revitalize the language.[11] At the Red Cloud Indian school, there are immersion classes for children to teach the language. However, at the moment, there are no children on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation that are fluent in the language.[10] Within the next ten years, there will be children fluent in Lakota.[10]

Dakota (Siouan Language)

• Definitely Endangered
• Mutually intelligible with Lakota language

There are about 20,000 native speakers, primarily in the North Dakota and South Dakota area, about 4,000 of which live in Minnesota.[12] Dakota Wicohon is an after school camp that helps children learn the language, since it is not taught in the government-run boarding schools for American Indian youth.[12] To help preservation efforts, technology like phraselators come into play, allowing learners to type in the words they want or orally speak the word they want and the machine will find it for them."Recording and preserving the Dakota language". The Native Voice. 12 July 2007. ProQuest 368736984.</ref>

Dogrib (Northern Athabaskan Language)

• Vulnerable
• Also called Tlinchon

There are about 2,640 speakers of the language in the Canadian Northwest Territories from the Great Slave Lake to the Great Bear Lake. Dogrib phonology is rather intricate and is organized into 5 levels.[13] The first person to write a book in Dogrib was Herb Zimmerman, who translated the Bible into the language in 1981.[14] Unlike many other Native American languages, there are children who are fluent in the language.[15]

Kaska (Athabaskan Language)

• Severely Endangered

This was typically a First Nations speaking language, and mainly lived in northern British Columbia and some from southeast Yukon in Canada.[16] People who speak Kaska today still live within the British Columbia and Yukon Territory area. The speakers are elders, such as grandparents, and their children and grandchildren would speak English. First Nations have started work to re-create and preserve their heritage language.[17]

Ottawa (Ojibwe Language)

• Severely Endangered
• Also called Odawa

The number of people who speak the Ottawa dialect is unknown, though it is predicted to be around 13,000. Native communities received $5 million a year for 7 years (2007-2014) to help them in their efforts to preserve their languages and teach it to their children.[18] The language is written with Latin letters and is a dialect of the Ojibwe language. Many descendants of migrants now live in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Stoney (Siouan Language)

• Vulnerable
• Also called Nakoda or Alberta Assiniboine

There are roughly 3,200 people who speak Stoney in the Northern Plains and the Alberta province of Canada. Stoney has a Latin alphabet. The stress is one of the harder aspects about the language.[19] The Stoney Indian Language Project was created to help make a standard format of the Stoney language. The project created 6 books for adults and children, as well as a videotape for third graders.[20]

Potawatomi (Central Algonquian Language)

• Critically Endangered
• Related to languages such as Cree, Ojibwa, Menominee, Kickapoo, and Odawa[21]

The Potawatomi Language is critically endangered because there are only 52 fluent speakers left surrounding the Great Lakes region in Michigan.[22] Within a decade, those who are fluent (the majority being the elderly) will soon be dead, causing the culture to die out with them, along with the knowledge of history that has been passed down from previous generations. English has become the predominant language spoken in homes due to the halt of parents speaking Potawatomi to children from 20 to more than 50 years ago.[21] Currently there are no teachings of the language but there are revitalization efforts to bring back the language and the culture that could possibly be gone forever.

Tuscarora (Northern Iroquoian Language)

• Critically Endangered
• With migration southward, historically situated in North Carolina[23]

Tuscarora entails complex morphology dealing with the copying of words, roots, stems, and affixes.[24] There was a time where the Tuscarora language was spoken 'as the mother tongue,' used for all situations, (formal and informal) but now there are approximately only four to five remaining elders who are fluent in the language. All of the elders are around the ages of seventy to eighty years old, where a possible result is the extinction of the Tuscarora language.

Cayuga (Northern Iroquoian Language)

• Critically Endangered
• The Native American Cayuga speaking people were split into two geographically separate groups.

The Native American Cayuga speaking people are located in Oklahoma and Ontario. With the splitting of the people into two geographical locations, they now begin to differ in terms of language usage, morphology and phonology. In the setting of Oklahoma, Cayuga has become influenced by other tribes and has to a certain extent, lost their original vocabulary.[25] Cayuga contains a pitch accent where the placement of it can be predicted by metrical structure and constraints on the structure of the syllables.[26]

Upper Tanana Language

• Critically Endangered

The Upper Tanana Language originally was spoken in only five villages, each with a different dialect. Those villages were Beaver Creek, Scottie Creek, Northway, Nabesna, and Tetlin. Today, the language is only spoken by about 95 people, above the age of 50, in eastern interior Alaska. Depending on the dialect, the Upper Tanana Language has about six to seven phonemic vowels. the primary difference between the dialects is by the pitch of the tone. Also a major factor in the split of different dialects is that different dialects have different vowel inventories.[27]

Nootka Language

• Severely Endangered

Despite misinterpretation of studies which describe the phonetic inventory of Nootka, these studies do not suggest that its phonemic inventory is the main reason why the Nootka language may be severely endangered. A process known as glottalization is a key factor in being able to articulate certain sounds in the language, called ejective consonants. Though these sounds are not in English, they not linguistically rare. Many languages with a large body of speakers, including Arabic and Amharic contain these sounds, an observation which immediately discredits this theory. It is clear that Nootka, like all Canadian aboriginal languages, is endangered due to social factors alone.[28]

References

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2. Gick, Bryan; Bliss, Heather; Michelson, Karin; Radanov, Bosko (January 2012). "Articulation without acoustics: 'Soundless' vowels in Oneida and Blackfoot". Journal of Phonetics. 40 (1): 46–53. doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2011.09.002.
3. Rice, Sally; Libben, Gary; Derwing, Bruce (April 2002). "Morphological Representation in an Endangered, Polysynthetic Language". Brain and Language. 81 (1–3): 473–486. doi:10.1006/brln.2001.2540. PMID 12081415. S2CID 1823874.
4. "Cataloguing Endangered Sign Languages". UNESCO.
5. "What Are Phonological Processes?" (PDF). Super Duper Inc. Super Duper Publications. 2004. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
6. Crystal, David (2000). Language Death. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 0-521-65321-5.
7. "the definition of contraction". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2015-10-27.
8. "the definition of transpose". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2015-10-27.
9. "metathesis | a change of place or condition: as". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2015-10-27.
10. "Lakota: The Revitalization of Language and the Persistence of Spirit". Truthout. Retrieved 2015-10-29.
11. Henne, Richard Brian (2003). Tongue -Tied: Sociocultural Change, Language, and Language Ideology Among the Oglala Lakota (Pine Ridge Sioux) (Thesis). hdl:2142/79725. ProQuest 305329568.
12. Guntzel, Jeff Severns (10 September 2011). "Dakota language a resurgence among Native youth". The Circle News. ProQuest 893756015.
13. Jaker, Alessandro Michelangelo (2012). Prosodic reversal in Dogrib (Weledeh dialect) (Thesis). ProQuest 922660326.
14. Malcolm, Andrew H. (1 February 1981). "A Dogrib Bible, 'Enitl'e-Cho,' Takes Shape in Canada". The New York Times. ProQuest 121496604.
15. MacIntyre, Joan Elaine (1993). First language influences in the reading behaviors of a sample of grade six Dogrib-speaking children (Thesis). ProQuest 304122812.
16. Meek, Barbra A. (2014). ""She can do it in English too": Acts of intimacy and boundary-making in language revitalization". Language & Communication. 38: 73–82. doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2014.05.004.
17. Meek, Barbra A.; Messing, Jacqueline (June 2007). "Framing Indigenous Languages as Secondary to Matrix Languages". Anthropology & Education Quarterly. 38 (2): 99–118. doi:10.1525/aeq.2007.38.2.99. JSTOR 25166611. ProQuest 218126971.
18. Burns, Shannon (3 January 2007). "Canada's language preservation funding cut strongly protested". Indian Country Today. ProQuest 362648263.
19. Erdman, Rhyasen; Lee, Corrie (1997). Stress in Stoney (Thesis). doi:10.11575/PRISM/15699. hdl:1880/26811. ProQuest 304340124.
20. Friesen, John W.; Kootenay, Clarice; Mark, Duane (June 1989). The Stoney Indian Language Project (Report). ERIC ED354769.
21. Wetzel, Christopher (2006). "Neshnabemwen Renaissance: Local and National Potawatomi Language Revitalization Efforts". The American Indian Quarterly. 30 (1): 61–86. doi:10.1353/aiq.2006.0012.
22. Buszard-Welcher, Laura (1997). "Language Use and Language Loss in the Potawatomi Community: A Report on the Potawatomi Language Institute". The Algonquin Papers. 28.
23. Burnaby, Barbara; Reyhner, Jon Allan (2002). Indigenous Languages Across the Community. Northern Arizona University. ISBN 978-0-9670554-2-8. ERIC ED462231.
24. Mithun, Marianne (2013). "Challenges and Benefits of Contact among Relatives: Morphological Copying". Journal of Language Contact. 6 (2): 243–270. doi:10.1163/19552629-00602003.
25. Dorian, Nancy C. (1992). Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-43757-8.
26. Dyck, Carrie (27 June 2016). "Cayuga Accent: A Synchronic Analysis". Canadian Journal of Linguistics. 42 (3): 285–322. doi:10.1017/S0008413100016959.
27. "Web of Science [v.5.19] - Web of Science Core Collection Full Record". apps.webofknowledge.com. Retrieved 2015-10-30.
28. Esling, John H.; Fraser, Katherine E.; Harris, Jimmy G. (2005-10-01). "Glottal stop, glottalized resonants, and pharyngeals: A reinterpretation with evidence from a laryngoscopic study of Nuuchahnulth (Nootka)". Journal of Phonetics. 33 (4): 383–410. doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2005.01.003.