Cree classes are offered once per week at Senator Myles Venne School free of charge. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

Learning Cree

Cree classes at SMVS revitalizing language one word at a time

Mar 14, 2019 | 11:26 AM

Cree language lessons at Senator Myles Venne School are building the vocabulary of tri-community residents one word at a time.

Since last September, local residents have been invited to Cree lessons at the school every Tuesday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The classes are being led by the Lac La Ronge Indian Band’s Cree language and culture coordinator Edie Venne, who decided to start the program after noticing fewer people are speaking Cree.

“I notice a lot of the younger people don’t speak it at all or even understand it,” she said. “I thought it would be nice if we offered free, conversational Cree classes hoping parents and anyone else interested would come out. It’s mostly older and middle-aged people who do.”

Every week, Venne stated those who attended the sessions learn about different words and how to use them in sentences. She noted a lot of it is basic Cree words and each session tends to follow a certain theme. For example, the class this week was about family and kinship terms, which are practiced then used in dialogue.

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While the size of the classes fluctuates, Venne added about 10-12 people attend the sessions regularly. She said classes will continue until the end of June and she is hopeful they will begin again in September. Anyone interested in joining are free to drop in, but Venne recommends people start next fall and do their best to attend all the classes.

“It’s good for the community to have this,” she said. “I think it’s pretty important because we are seeing a loss of language, and our young people, especially, don’t know their language. If you don’t know your language, you really don’t know your identity.”

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derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno