Indigenous Language Should Be Priority: Goodleaf

Indigenous Language Should Be Priority: Goodleaf

Wednesday, December 09, 2009 at 10:46

An advocate for Indigenous languages says Indigenous people need to speak their mother tongues as first languages, not second languages.

Donna Goodleaf is president of the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres, and also the executive director of the culture centre in her Kahnawake Mohawk Territory.

“In 20 years I’m going to see, and I have to make sure, that we produce speakers in our community who are walking around and are speaking (her Native tongue) as a first language. That, to me, is what I’m for. That, to me, is the vision and direction that as Indigenous peoples we must think about. We must have a vision — where is it that we want to go?,” Goodleaf says.

She says young people need to change their outlook and attitudes towards their languages and realize that those languages are a priority.

Goodleaf was speaking at the First Nations Language Keepers conference in Saskatoon yesterday.