EDPS 542 - Meaning and Structure in the Cree Language

★ 3 (fi 6) (either term, 3-0-0) Course instructors and students will engage in processes that examine the roots and structures of Cree words to uncover/discover embedded cultural meaning in the language, expanding this study to include other Indigenous languages. The course will facilitate the movement of participants beyond the veil of surface meanings usually ascribed to physical phenomena of the Cree world, and other worlds within other languages. Critical explorations will highlight the connections between this understanding and common approaches to educational programming for Indigenous languages. A shift in participant awareness and positioning in relation to language learning holds the potential for more complex individual understanding of how Cree and other languages carry the cosmology, ontology, and knowledge system of respective, distinct peoples and cultures. Course objectives will include increased knowledge and related educational praxis with deepened understanding about the integral relationship between a language and the people whose lives and thought are reflected therein.