Michif

Michif (also Mitchif, Mechif, Michif-Cree, Métif, Métchif, French Cree) is one of the languages of the Métis people of Canada and the United States, who are the descendants of First Nations (mainly Cree, Nakota, and Ojibwe) and fur trade workers of white ancestry (mainly French). Michif emerged in the early 19th century as a mixed language and adopted a consistent character between about 1820 and 1840.

The word Michif is from a variant pronunciation of the French word Métis. Some Métis people prefer this word (Michif) to describe their nationality when speaking English and use it for anything related to Métis people, including any languages they happen to speak. According to the Gabriel Dumont Institute (GDI), the word Michif, when used for a language, is used to describe at least three distinct types of speech. Northern Michif (in Saskatchewan) is essentially a variety of Cree with a small number of French loanwords. Michif French is a variety of Canadian French with some Cree loanwords and syntax (word order). Michif used without any qualification can also describe the mixed language which borrows heavily from both Cree and French. According to theories of self-determination and self-identification, the GDI refers to all of these speech varieties as Michif because many Métis community members use the term that way, even though these varieties are widely different in their linguistic details. The remainder of this article deals primarily with the mixed language that has many features from both French and Cree.

In 2021, the number of Michif speakers in Canada was reported to be 1,845. However, the number of fluent Michif speakers is estimated at fewer than 1,000. It was probably double or triple this number at the close of the 19th century, but never much higher. Currently, Michif is spoken in scattered Métis communities in the Canadian prairie provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta, and in North Dakota in the U.S.. There are about 50 speakers in Alberta, all over age 60. There are some 230 speakers of Michif in the United States (down from 390 at the 1990 census), most of whom live in North Dakota, particularly in the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. There are around 300 Michif speakers in the Northwest Territories, northern Canada.

Michif combines Cree and Métis French (Rhodes 1977, Bakker 1997:85), a variety of Canadian French, with some additional borrowing from English and indigenous languages of the Americas such as Ojibwe and Assiniboine. In general, Michif noun phrase phonology, lexicon, morphology, and syntax are derived from Métis French, while verb phrase phonology, lexicon, morphology, and syntax are from a southern variety of Plains Cree (a western dialect of Cree). Articles and adjectives are also of Métis French origin but demonstratives are from Plains Cree.

The Michif language is unusual among mixed languages, in that rather than forming a simplified grammar, it developed by incorporating complex elements of the chief languages from which it was born. French-origin noun phrases retain lexical gender and adjective agreement; Cree-origin verbs retain much of their polysynthetic structure. This suggests that instead of haltingly using words from another's tongue, the people who gradually came to speak Michif were fully fluent in both French and Cree.

The Michif language was first brought to scholarly attention in 1976 by John Crawford at the University of North Dakota. Much of the subsequent research on Michif was also related to UND, including four more pieces by Crawford, plus work by Evans, Rhodes, and Weaver.

Orthography
Michif lacks a unified spelling standard. Aside from local language differences, lack of a uniform spelling system can be attributed to Michif’s history as an oral language. Generally, Michif-speaking communities spell words as they are pronounced in regional dialects, creating much variation in spelling. Some systems are phonetic, with each letter having only one sound (often based on English standards), while other are etymological, with French-derived words spelled by French standards, and Cree-derived words spelled using the "Standard Roman Orthography" system.

In 2004, Robert Papen proposed a new system that was mostly phonetic.

The government of Manitoba published a translation of its annual report on The Path to Reconciliation Act in Michif in June 2017. Its choice of spelling system can be seen in this extract:

"'Chimooshakinitoohk' aen itwayhk Kwaayeshchi Kanawaapinitoohk, chi nishtotaatoohk paarmii lii atoktonn pi lii blaan pour chi ooshitaahk chi li Trustiihk, mina kayaash chi nishtotamihk ka kii itawyhk mina chi kii kayhk pi mina kaahkiiyow chi maamoo atooshkayhk." Here, as in Papen's system, different vowel qualities are marked by writing the character doubled ("a" vs. "aa") instead of using diacritical marks as usual for Cree. For consistency, this system is also extended to the French-derived words so that French les blancs ('whites') becomes lii blaan but les autochtones ('the indigenous') becomes lii atoktonn.

Phonology
Michif as recorded starting in the 1970s combined two separate phonological systems: one for French origin elements, and one for Cree origin elements (Rhodes 1977, 1986). For instance,, , and  exist only in French words, whereas preaspirated stops such as  and  exist only in Cree words. In this variety of Michif, the French elements were pronounced in ways that have distinctively Canadian French values for the vowels, while the Cree elements have distinctively Cree values for vowels. Nonetheless, there is some Cree influence on French words in the stress system (Rosen 2006). But by the year 2000 there were Michif speakers who had collapsed the two systems into a single system (Rosen 2007).

Vowels
Michif has eleven oral vowels and four nasalized vowels.

Nasalized vowels
The following four vowels are nasalized in Michif:



Schwa-deletion
A schwa /ə/ appearing between two consonants in French-origin words is dropped in Michif. Examples of this process are listed in the table below.

Elision in Michif
Rosen (2007) states that since all French-derived vowel-initial nouns in Michif have been lexicalized as consonant-initial, the French rule of elision, which deletes certain vowels (particularly schwa) before vowel-initial words, for ex., le copain 'the friend' but l'ami 'the friend'), cannot apply in Michif. Curiously, she admits that elision is potentially still active since vowel-initial English loanwords allow elision, as in un bol d'oatmeal 'a bowl of oatmeal'. Papen (2014) has countered that elision is, in fact, just as active in French-derived words as is liaison. For example, he examines Noun + di + Noun constructions (as in mwaa di zhanvjii vs. mwaa d'oktob 'month of January' vs. 'month of October') and finds that 100% of (from French schwa) are deleted before French-derived vowel-initial nouns. However, elision does not occur before Cree vowel-initial nouns. This strongly suggests that French phonological rules, such as liaison and elision still function in Michif, but that they apply only to French-derived words and not to Cree-derived ones, implying that Michif phonology is at least partially stratified, contrary to what Rosen (2007) proposes.

Liaison consonants
In French, a liaison is used to bridge the gap between word-final and word-initial vowel sounds. Whether liaison still exists in Michif is a much discussed theoretical issue. Scholars such as Bakker (1997), Rhodes (1986), and Rosen (2007) have suggested that liaison no longer exists in Michif and that all words that etymologically began with a vowel in French now begin with a consonant, the latter resulting from a variety of sources, including a liaison consonant. Their arguments are based on the fact that the expected liaison consonant (for example, ) will not show up and instead, the consonant will be, as in in zur 'a bear' The above authors cite over a dozen words with an unexpected initial consonant. Papen (2003, 2014) has countered this argument by showing that, statistically, the vast majority of so-called initial consonants in Michif reflect the expected liaison consonant and that only about 13% of so-called initial consonants are unexpected. Moreover, Papen points out that one of the so-called initial consonant is, which in nearly all cases, represents the elided definite article l (from li), in which case it cannot be a liaison consonant, since liaison consonants may not have grammatical or semantic meaning. Thus in a sequence such as larb the meaning is not simply 'tree' but 'the tree', where initial l has the meaning of 'the', and is initial only in a phonetic sense, but not in a phonological one, since it represents a distinct morpheme from arb, and thus arb must be considered phonologically vowel-initial.

Palatalization
The voiced alveolar stop in French-origin words is palatalized to  in Michif, as in Acadian French. This may occur word-initially or word-internally before front vowels.

Vocabulary
A comparison of some common words in English, French, Michif, and Cree:

Noun phrase
Nouns are almost always accompanied by a French-origin determiner or a possessive.

Cree-origin demonstratives can be added to noun phrases, in which case the Cree gender (animate or inanimate) is that of the corresponding Cree noun.

Adjectives are French-origin (Cree has no adjectives), and as in French they are either pre- or postnominal. Prenominal adjectives agree in gender (like French), however, postnominal adjectives do not agree in gender (unlike French).

Verb phrase
The verb phrase is that of Plains Cree-origin with little reduction (there are no dubitative or preterit verb forms).

Word order
Michif word order is basically that of Cree (relatively free). However, the more French-origin elements are used, the closer the syntax seems to conform to norms of spoken French.

Lexicon
Nouns: 			83–94% French-origin; others are mostly Cree-origin, Ojibwe-origin, or English-origin

Verbs: 		88–99% Cree-origin

Question words: Cree-origin

Personal pronouns: Cree

Postpositions: Cree-origin

Prepositions: French-origin

Conjunctions: 55% Cree-origin; 40% French-origin

Numerals: French-origin

Demonstratives: Cree-origin

The Lord's Prayer in English, French, and Michif:

Language genesis
In languages of mixed ethnicities, the language of the mother usually provides the grammatical system, while the language of the father provides the lexicon. The reasons are as follows: children tend to know their mother's language better; in the case of the Métis, the men were often immigrants, whereas the women were native to the region. If the bilingual children need to use either of their parents' languages to converse with outsiders, it is most likely to be the language of their mothers. Thus, the model of language-mixing predicts that Michif should have a Cree grammatical system and French lexicon. Michif, however, has Cree verb phrases and French noun phrases. The explanation for this unusual distribution of Cree and French elements in Michif lies in the polysynthetic nature of Cree morphology. In Cree, verbs can be very complex with up to twenty morphemes, incorporated nouns and unclear boundaries between morphemes. In other words, in Cree verbs it is very difficult to separate grammar from lexicon. As a result, in Michif the grammatical and bound elements are almost all Cree, and the lexical and free elements are almost all French; verbs are almost totally Cree, because the verb consists of grammatical and bound elements. Seen in this way, it can be argued that Michif is fundamentally Cree, but with heavy French borrowing (somewhat like Maltese, a mixed Arabic-Italian language classified as fundamentally Arabic). The Métis in addition have their own variety of French with Cree borrowings – Métis French.

Language genesis from Michif People
The genesis of the Michif peoples and language has been passed through generations. The story of the creation of the Michif people and their language was told to Elder Brousse Flammand (currently the president of the Michif kaa-piikishkwaychik, or Michif Speakers Association) by his grandparents (born 1876 and 1886). The information he gives is also told by other Michif speakers, who agree that the language was given to the Michif peoples by the Creator/God. He states that the genesis of the Michif person/nation is synonymous with the genesis of the Michif language. Both the language and the nation are creations of the Creator/God— and are symbiotic to each other.

The creation of a specific language for Metis people allowed for a collective identity, where Michif speakers could take action together to protect traditional territories and homelands, and share a collective history.

Loss of language
In 2011, Statistics Canada reported 640 Michif speakers located mainly in Saskatchewan (40.6%), Manitoba (26.6%), and Alberta (11.7%). In the cross-reference provided by Statistics Canada, it is shown that of these 640 speakers, only 30 are below 24 years of age. Furthermore, only 85 people declared Michif to be their main home language (45 their sole language); and of these, 65 were 50 or older. Unfortunately, these numbers do not reflect the actual number of speakers of the mixed variety of Michif in Canada, since the statistical survey did not differentiate between regional differences, including Michif Cree, Michif French, or mixed Michif.

In 2021, the number of Michif speakers in Canada was reported to be 1,845. However, the number of fluent Michif speakers is estimated at fewer than 1,000. It was probably double or triple this number at the close of the 19th century, but never much higher. Currently, Michif is spoken in scattered Métis communities in the Canadian prairie provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta, and in North Dakota in the U.S.. There are about 50 speakers in Alberta, all over age 60. There are some 230 speakers of Michif in the United States (down from 390 at the 1990 census), most of whom live in North Dakota, particularly in the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. There are around 300 Michif speakers in the Northwest Territories, northern Canada.

In Metis communities’, there has been a clear shift towards the European languages. Today, all Michif speakers are also fluent (if not dominant) in English, and Metis adult and youth speak English (or French and English) as their first language(s). The reason why Michif has so few speakers and is in need of active revitalization efforts is a direct result of colonization. Judy Iseke, an Albertan Metis scholar, argues that “language shift towards English and other colonial languages in Indigenous communities was not a ‘natural’ process but rather was a shift towards the decline of Indigenous languages, propelled by colonial schooling designed to ‘civilize’ Indigenous children and turn them into citizens conforming to 'white' standards."

Language revitalization
Revitalizing the Michif language is important to Métis people. Language is regarded as culturally significant and holds more value than just the attributes studied by linguists. Elder Brousse Flammand writes "Language is central to nationhood" and that "A government cannot legislate this identity and nationhood; the government can only recognize what is already in existence." Michif was (and is) central to the independent culture and nationhood of the Métis people. The Métis community is working toward language revitalization to keep this connection to their independent culture and nationhood.

Métis cultural centres such as the Michif Cultural and Métis Resource Institute in St. Albert, Alberta, the Métis Culture and Heritage Resource Centre in Winnipeg, and the Gabriel Dumont Institute of Native Studies and Applied Research are attempting to revive the language through public outreach. Additionally, The Louis Riel Institute (LRI), which is the education department of the Manitoba Metis Federation in Winnipeg, is an adult learning center committed to the development of community based educational programs directed to adults and the whole family. The Institute has released DVD beginner lessons for both Michif and Michif French, which are also available online.

As of 2013, the Northern Journal reports that "Aboriginal language and culture is becoming increasingly visible" in Alberta, as Alberta's Northland School Division, "serving mostly First Nations and Métis students in the northern part of the province" has expanded its community partnerships and culture camps.