Cree is the name for a group of closely-related Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 50,000 speakers across Canada, from Alberta to Labrador. Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Algic (also Algonquian-Wiyot-Yurok or Algonquian-Ritwan) languages are an indigenous language family of North America. ... Pre-contact distribution of Algonquian languages The Algonquian (also Algonkian) languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic language family (the two Algic languages that are not Algonquian are Wiyot and Yurok of northwestern California). ... Pre-contact distribution of Algonquian languages The Algonquian (also Algonkian) languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic language family (the two Algic languages that are not Algonquian are Wiyot and Yurok of northwestern California). ... Writing systems of the world today. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Cree syllabics are the variations on Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics that are used to write Cree language dialects. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Motto: none Official languages Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey, Tåîchô [1] Flower Mountain avens Tree Tamarack Bird Gyr Falcon Capital Yellowknife Largest city Yellowknife Commissioner Tony Whitford Premier Joe Handley (Consensus government (no party affiliations)) Parliamentary representation  - House seats  - Senate seats... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of sounds and the human voice. ... Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... This chart shows concisely the most common way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is applied to represent the English language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Pre-contact distribution of Algonquian languages The Algonquian (also Algonkian) languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic language family (the two Algic languages that are not Algonquian are Wiyot and Yurok of northwestern California). ... Motto: Fortis et liber (Latin: Strong and free) Official languages English (see below) Flower   Wild rose Tree Lodgepole Pine Bird Great Horned Owl Capital Edmonton Largest city Calgary Lieutenant-Governor Norman Kwong Premier Ed Stelmach (PC) Parliamentary representation  - House seats  - Senate seats 28 6 Area Total  - Land  - Water  (% of total... Labrador (also Coast of Labrador) is a region of Atlantic Canada. ...

Dialect criteria

The Cree dialect continuum can be divided by several criteria. Dialects spoken from northern Ontario and coastal north-western Quebec make a distinction between /š/ (sh as in she) and /s/, while those to the west (where both are pronounced /s/) and east (where both are pronounced either /š/ or /h/) do not. In several dialects, including northern Plains Cree and Woods Cree, the long vowels /ê/ and /î/ have merged into a single vowel. In the Québec communities of Chisasibi and Whapmagoostui, the long vowel /ê/ has merged with /â/. A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ... Motto: Ut Incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet (Latin: Loyal she began, loyal she remains) Official languages English (de facto) Flower White Trillium Tree Eastern White Pine Bird Common Loon Capital Toronto Largest city Toronto Lieutenant-Governor James K. Bartleman Premier Dalton McGuinty (Liberal) Parliamentary representation  - House seats  - Senate seats 106 24... Motto: Je me souviens (French: I remember) Official languages French Flower Blue Flag Iris (Iris versicolor Linné) Tree Yellow Birch Bird Snowy Owl Capital Quebec City Largest city Montreal Lieutenant-Governor Lise Thibault Premier Jean Charest (PLQ) Parliamentary representation  - House seats  - Senate seats 75 24 Area Total  - Land  - Water  (% of... Plains Cree is an Algonquian language, often considered a dialect of Cree, spoken by about 34,000 people in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Montana. ... Chisasibi is a Cree village on the eastern shore of James Bay, part of the Baie-James Municipality in Quebec, Canada. ... Whapmagoostui (place of the beluga in Cree) is a Cree village of about 700 people at the mouth of the Grande-Baleine River, on the coast of Hudson Bay in Nunavik, Quebec. ...

However, the most transparent phonological variation between different Cree dialects are:

• The reflexes of the proto-Algonquian *l in the modern dialects.

The Plains Cree, speakers of the y dialect, refer to their language as Nêhiyawêwin, whereas Woods Cree speakers say nîhithawîwin, and Swampy Cree speakers say nêhinawêwin. This is similar to the alternation in the Siouan languages Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota, or the evolution of the Old Church Slavonic vowel yat into different present-day Slavic languages. The Atikamekw are the indigenous inhabitants of the area they refer to as Nitaskinan, in the upper St. ... Pre-contact distribution of the Siouan languages The Siouan (a. ... Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian, Old Macedonian, and Old Slavic) is the first literary Slavic language, developed from the Slavic dialect of Thessaloniki (Solun) by the 9th century Byzantine missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius. ... Yat or Jat (, ) is the 32nd letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet and name of the sound represented by it. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup...

• Palatalisation of *k: East of the Ontario-Quebec border (except for Atikamekw), Proto-Algonquian *k has changed into /č/ (ch as in cheese) before front vowels. See the table above for examples in the *kīlawa column.

Very often the Cree dialect continuum is divided into two languages: Cree and Montagnais. Cree includes all dialects which have not undergone the *k>/č/ sound change (BC–Que) while Montagnais encompasses the territory where this sound change has occurred (Que–NL). These labels are very useful from a linguistic perspective but are confusing as East Cree then qualifies as Montagnais. For practical purposes, Cree usually covers the dialects which use syllabics as their orthography (including Atikamekw but excluding Kawawachikamach Naskapi), the term Montagais then applies to those dialects using the Latin script (excluding Atikamekw and including Kawawachikamach Naskapi). The term Naskapi typically refers to Kawawachikamach (y-dialect) and Natuashish (n-dialect). Kawawachikamach, Quebec, meaning meandering waters, is an aboriginal village at the sound end of Lac Matemace (where it joins Lac Peter) about eight kilometres northeast of Schefferville, population 581, latitude 54° 51 49, longitude 66° 45 34. The village was built by the Naskapi from 1980 to 1983. ...

Dialect groups

A rough map of Cree dialect areas

We can broadly classify the Cree dialects into nine groups. From west to east: Map of Cree language area, uses Canadamap. ... Map of Cree language area, uses Canadamap. ...

• Plains Cree (y-dialect)
• Woods Cree (th-dialect)
• Swampy Cree (n-dialect)

Swampy Cree in turn has an eastern and a western dialect which differ in the use of the phoneme š. In the western dialect, š has merged with s.

• Moose Cree (l-dialect)
• James Bay Cree (y-dialect, sometimes called East Cree)

James Bay Cree has a northern and a southern dialect which differ in the number of vowel distinctions they make. The long vowels ê and â have merged in the northern dialect but are distinct in the southern. Nonetheless, the people from the two areas easily communicate.

• Atikamekw (r-dialect)
• Western Montagnais (l-dialect)
• Eastern Montagnais (n-dialect, also sometimes called Innu-aimun)
• Naskapi (y-dialect)

Plains Cree is an Algonquian language, often considered a dialect of Cree, spoken by about 34,000 people in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Montana. ... Swampy Cree is spoken by people from northern Manitoba, and Western Ontario. ... The Atikamekw language (also spelled Attikamek) is an Algonquian language, and is a dialect of the Cree language complex. ... Innu-aimun or Montagnais is an Algonquian language spoken by over 16,500 people, called the Innu, in Labrador and Quebec in Eastern Canada. ... The Innu are the indigenous inhabitants of an area they refer to as Nitassinan, which comprises most of the Quebec-Labrador peninsula in Eastern Canada. ...

Syntax

Like many Native American languages, Cree features a complex polysynthetic morphology and syntax. A Cree word can be very long, and express something that takes a series of words in English, while at other times Cree is more explicit than English. For example, the Plains Cree word for "school" is kiskinohamatowkamikw, "Know-by.hand-caus-applicative-reciprocal-place," "The knowing-it-together-by-example place". To say "he always danced like that" in Plains Cree, however, is simply ki-isi-nanimihtow. Native American languages are the indigenous languages of the Americas, spoken by Native Americans from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland. ... Polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i. ...

Written Cree

Cree dialects, except for those spoken in eastern Quebec and Labrador, are traditionally written using Cree syllabics, a variant of Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, but can be written with the Roman alphabet as well. The easternmost dialects are written using the Roman alphabet exclusively. Motto: Je me souviens (French: I remember) Official languages French Flower Blue Flag Iris (Iris versicolor Linné) Tree Yellow Birch Bird Snowy Owl Capital Quebec City Largest city Montreal Lieutenant-Governor Lise Thibault Premier Jean Charest (PLQ) Parliamentary representation  - House seats  - Senate seats 75 24 Area Total  - Land  - Water  (% of... Labrador (also Coast of Labrador) is a region of Atlantic Canada. ... Cree syllabics are the variations on Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics that are used to write Cree language dialects. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

Creole languages

Cree was also a component language in two creoles unique to Western Canada. Michif, combining Cree and French; and Bungee, combing Cree and Scottish Gaelic. Both languages were spoken by Métis voyageurs and settlers in Western Canada. Many Cree words also became the basis for words in the Chinook Jargon trade language used until some point after contact with Europeans. A creole language, or just creole, is a well-defined and stable language that originated from a non-trivial combination of two or more languages, typically with many distinctive features that are not inherited from either parent. ... Michif (also Mitchif, Mechif, Michif-Cree, Métif, Métchif) is the language of the Métis people of Canada and the northern United States, who are the descendants of First Nations women (mainly Cree, Nakota and Ojibwe) and fur trade workers of European ancestry (mainly French Canadians). ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Canadian Gaelic (Gaelic: Gàidhlig Canadanach, locally just Gaelic or The Gaelic) is the dialect of Scots Gaelic that has been spoken continuously for more than 200 years on Cape Breton Island and in isolated enclaves on the Nova Scotia mainland. ... The Métis (pronounced MAY tee, SAMPA: [meti], in French: [metis] or, [mEtIs]) are an ethnic group of the Canadian prairies and Ontario. ... The coureurs des bois (runners of the woods) or voyageurs (travellers) is the name given to the men who engaged in the fur trade directly with the Amerindians in North America from the time of New France up through the 19th century, when much of the continent was still mostly... Western Canada is a geographic region of Canada, also known as simply the West, generally considered to be west of the province of Ontario. ... Chinook Jargon was a trade language (or pidgin) of the Pacific Northwest, which spread quickly up the West Coast from Oregon, through Washington, British Columbia, and as far as Alaska. ...

Legal status

The social and legal status of Cree varies across Canada. Cree is one of the seven official languages of the Northwest Territories, but is only spoken by a small number of people there in the area around the town of Fort Smith. In many areas, it is a vibrant community language still spoken by large majorities and taught in schools. In other areas, its use has declined dramatically. Cree is one of the least endangered aboriginal languages in North America, but is nonetheless at risk since it possesses little institutional support in most areas. Motto: none Official languages Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey, Tåîchô [1] Flower Mountain avens Tree Tamarack Bird Gyr Falcon Capital Yellowknife Largest city Yellowknife Commissioner Tony Whitford Premier Joe Handley (Consensus government (no party affiliations)) Parliamentary representation  - House seats  - Senate seats... Fort Smith is a community in the Northwest Territories, Canada. ...

Literature

• Wolvengrey, Arok, ed. ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ: ᐃᑗᐏᓇ / nēhiýawēwin: itwēwina / Cree: Words. Canadian Plains Research Center, 15 October 2001. ISBN 0-88977-127-8.
• Steller, Lea-Katharina (geb. Virághalmy): Alkalmazkodni és újat adni – avagy „accomodatio“ a paleográfiában In: Paleográfiai kalandozások. Szentendre, 1995. ISBN 963-450-922-3

Arok Wolvengrey (IPA: /ˈɛɹək ˈwʊlvn̩ˌgɹe(ɪ)/) is a linguist noted for his work with Amerindian languages. ... October 15 is the 288th day of the year (289th in leap years). ... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

Cree language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Nehinawe: Speak Cree
  • Cree Language Lessons
• The East Cree language web
• Our Languages: Cree (Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre)
• Language Geek: Cree -- OpenType font repository of aboriginal languages (including Cree).