Maria Mazzoli

The French Element in the Michif (Cree-derived) Verb Stem 

This paper deals with the voyages, the travels and routes of lexemes and chunks of language through oceans and beyond, to investigate a case of language contact between a colonial language (French) and an Indigenous language of North America (Plains Cree). Although the French colonial plans over North America failed, French-speaking language communities survived as West as Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada). Bits of language traveled and spread across the Atlantic ocean following the settlement in New France and Canada, and the fur-trading ventures of the coureurs de bois. Language stayed, resisting the population movements that had brought it there. Traces of the French language remained in several varieties of Algonquian languages, such as Brayet (French/Ojibwa mixture, now extinct, Stobie 1971), and Michif, an endangered mixed language that combines Plains Cree (Algonquian, autoglossonym Nēhiyawēwin) verbs and Metis French (Romance) nouns.

Michif is spoken by around 100 people in different communities in Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan (Canada) and North Dakota (USA) (Bakker 1997, Mazzoli submitted). Today, it is the official language of the Metis Nation in Canada (Barkwell 2004:1), but has no recognition in the USA. Most of its speakers are over 70 years old and no children or people in the child-bearing age speak the language fluently, due to the shift towards English completed in the late 1950s. Michif has recently vanished in Alberta, Montana, and some communities in Saskatchewan.

In this presentation, I will describe the French-derived element in the Michif verb, which is otherwise mostly Cree-derived, as exemplified in 1 and 2 (French-derived elements in bold). The data come from conversational Michif and elicited material from Bakker (1985-86) and Mazzoli (2017-18). In particular, I will consider (1) the different word classes that get integrated into the stem (French-derived adjectives, nouns and verbs), (2) which constructions permit their integration (i.e. certain FINALS), and (3) the productivity of these mixed constructions (abbreviations: 3 = third person; AI = animate intransitive; CNJ = conjunct mode; IND = independent mode; S = singular).

(1)       mituni la-propr-iwi-w

            very  the-proper-BE-IND.AI.3s

            'She is very proper'

(2)       ee-le-zhali-hke-t

            CNJ-the-nice-to.make-CNJ.AI.3s

            ‘as she makes it better’

Bakker, Peter. 1997. A Language of Our Own: The Genesis of Michif, the Mixed Cree-French Language of the Canadian Métis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barkwell, Lawrence (ed). 2004. La Lawng: Michif Peekishkwewin. The Heritage Language of the Canadian Metis: Language Theory, Vol. 1. Winnipeg: Manitoba Metis Federation.
Mazzoli Maria. submitted. Challenges and opportunities within a collaborative model of language research: the Michif case. In Knopf, Kerstin, Sippola, Eeva, and Lesho, Marivic (eds), Postcolonial Knowledges. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Press.
Stobie, Margaret. 1971. The dialect called Bungi. In Canadian Antiques Collector 6(8):20.