Press Release
Friday, June 09, 2023
Major Funding to Support Learning Wolastoqey
The SQOTESOL team, co-directed by Professors Pénélope Cormier and Mélanie LeBlanc (Université de Moncton, campus d’Edmundston) in partnership with the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation and the Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation, has received $165,000 in funding from Patrimoine Canadien’s “Indigenous Languages and Cultures” program. This significant funding will enable the company to capitalize on the expertise of native speakers and advanced learners of Wolastoqey: Allan Tremblay (Neqotkuk First Nation), Lisa-Maude Aubin-Bérubé, and Louis-Xavier Aubin-Bérubé (Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation).
Wiciw, the name chosen for the platform, means “with”, to evoke the spirit of a community of learners.
Today, there are approximately one hundred speakers of Wolastoqey, most of them of advanced age. Learning and passing on the language is therefore a major challenge. For many, the language of instruction (English) or geographical distance are barriers to learning.
Wiciw will therefore offer an alternative or complementary solution to language courses with native speakers for those who do not have easy access to them. The platform’s content will be available free of charge at www.edu.sqotesol.ca and can be explored in French, English, and both Wolastoqey orthographic systems (Teeter and Newell-Hale).
“The creation of this platform will greatly help with Wolastoqe community as well as anyone else interested in learning more about this language. The Wolastoqey language is at a critical point in its existence, and the creation of speakers and a learning platform is crucial to its survival,” confides Louis-Xavier Aubin-Bérubé, one of the platform’s content developers. “This language is culturally very rich, and I believe it has a lot to offer all those who live on its ancestral territory which we call Wolastokuk!”
This is also a concrete example of collaboration between the university community and Indigenous communities, accord to Pierrette Fortin, Dean of Studies at the Edmundston campus of the Université de Moncton (UMCE): “In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s calls to action, research in partnership with the Indigenous communities is very important to UMCE. This project is a fine example of collaborative action research that responds to the needs of our communities and draws on the expertise of two of our professors. The funding obtained will enable the development of the Wiciw platform, but it is only the beginning of a broader action-research project that will lead to other partnership initiatives.
Indeed, Wiciw is one of a series of projects by the SQOTESOL team and its wolastoqi partners; an overview of these projects is available at www.sqotesol.ca.
For Information:
Mélanie LeBlanc, sociolinguist and
Sqotesol team co-director
E-mail: melanie.leblanc@umoncton.ca
Telephone: (506)
737-5139
Catherine Plourde, Director of Human Resources, Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk
First Nation
Email: rh@malecites.ca
Telephone: (418) 860-2727
Shawn
Francis, Culture and Language Coordinator, Madawaska Maliseet First Nation
Email:
shawnfrancis@madadwaskamaliseet.com
Telephone: (506) 735-0676
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