Editing Cree language (section)

== Loss of language ==
Doug Cuthand argues three reasons for the loss of the Cree language among many speakers over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.<ref name=":0">Cuthand, D. (2007). ''Askiwina: A Cree world''. Regina: Coteau Books.</ref> First, [[Residential School System|residential schools]] cultivated the prejudice that their language was inferior. While students were still speaking their native language at home, their learning stopped at school. When they left residential schools as adults, they went home and their vocabulary and knowledge of language did not include concepts or forms that an adult speaker who had not been taken to a residential school would have.

Cuthand also argues that the loss of the Cree language can be attributed to the migration of native families away from the [[Indian reserve|reserve]], voluntarily or not. Oftentimes, the elders are left on the reserve.<ref name=":0" /> This breaks up the traditional intergenerational flow of lingual knowledge from elder to youth.

The third point Cuthand<ref name=":0" /> argues is that Cree language loss was adopted by the speakers. Parents stopped teaching their children their native language in the belief that doing so would help their children find economic success or avoid discrimination.
[[File:Cree_map.svg|thumb|Map of Cree dialects]]