Reclaiming multilingualism in Saskatchewan schools: historical thinking, policy discontinuities, and language futures

Abstract

This article explores past struggles over planned language shift in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan to demonstrate how historical thinking about language policy can be used to provide insight into contemporary and future efforts to reclaim societal multilingualism. We write this paper as co-authors with different backgrounds. Andrea is a white settler from rural Saskatchewan, with Western and Eastern European ancestors who came to this territory in the early 1900s. Belinda kakiyosēw Daniels is nēhiyaw from Sturgeon Lake First Nation and her ancestors have been in what is now Treaty 6 territory since time immemorial. These differences in our identities mean that, while we are both connected to Saskatchewan, provincial and federal systems and colonial policies have impacted our families, individual lives and trajectories in markedly different ways. Our collaborative work in language research is enriched by these differences.