User:Kennedy Kechely/sandbox

Article evaluation

 * Everything in the "Cree Language" article seems relevant. I was a little distracted by the "Names" section because it isn't organized very well. There is a lot of italicized text and text in parentheses that is distracting. I think it has good information, but could be organized better.
 * The article is very neutral. The only thing that a position could really be taken on is revitalization efforts and there is not very much information on that in the article.
 * One of the links I checked did not work and it is cited twice in the article, so that is problematic. Another one of the sources is about the writing system of Cree. The source is a random website, but I think that type of information especially can be found in a more reliable source.
 * The current amount of speakers listed is from 2006, so it is over ten years outdated. I would imagine that I can find a more recent number for that.
 * The talk page is full of mostly little things. There is only one recent post, otherwise the rest are about five years ago.
 * It is not rated (that I can see). It is "of interest" to four different WikiProjects, the two of "high-importance are WikiProject Languages and WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
 * Wikipedia addresses the language from a very mundane perspective. I don't think there is enough emphasis on Cree being an endangered language.

Notes for improvement

 * adjust intro to align more with Wikipedia's guidelines
 * add citation to endonyms
 * add to phonology including citations
 * fix references in syntax section
 * some are dead links
 * some aren't cited at all
 * add to syntax with Cree Grammar
 * cite "Speakers of various Cree dialects..." in Writing section
 * find more information of legal status
 * add more to public education from sources!!!
 * add citations in public education

= Cree Language Edit =

Add Bold Information to "Intro"
Cree /ˈkriː/[4] is a dialect continuum of Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories to Alberta to Labrador (Aboriginal Languages Secretariat). If classified as one language, it is the Aboriginal language with the highest number of speakers in Canada.[1] The only region where Cree has any official status is in the Northwest Territories, alongside eight other aboriginal languages.[5] The places that Cree is spoken are mainly in Fort Smith and Hay River (Government of the Northwest Territories).

Loss of Language
Cuthand (2007) argues three reasons for the loss of the Cree language. First, residential schools ensured that the students knew their home language was useless and outdated. 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 was unchanged since they had left the reservation as a child.

Cuthand (2007) also argues that the loss of the Cree language can be attributed to native families leaving the reservation. Often times, the elders are left on the reservation. This breaks up the traditional intergenerational flow of lingual knowledge from elder to youth.

The third point Cuthand (2007) argues is that Cree language loss was self inflicted by the speakers. Parents stopped teaching their children their native language in order to help their children find success in the world by raising them with a more widely used language, like English.

Change "Public Education" to "Support and Revitalization" With The Following:
Cree has about 117,000 documented speakers today (Aboriginal Language Secretariat). They are still a minority language given the dominance of English and French in Canada. There are programs in place to maintain and revitalize the language, though. In the Quebec James Cree Bay community, a resolution was put into action in 1988 that made Cree the language of education in primary schools and eventually elementary schools (McAlpine & Herodier, 1994).

The Mistissini council decided to require their employees to learn Cree syllabics in 1991 (McAlpine & Herodier, 1994).

The Cree School Board now has their annual report available in both English and Cree (McAlpine & Herodier, 1994).

There is a push to increase the availability of Cree stations on the radio (McAlpine & Herodier, 1994).

In 2013, free Cree language electronic books for beginners became available for Alberta language teachers.[23]

The Government of the Northwest Territories (insert citation) releases an annual report on First Nations languages. The 2016-2017 report features successes they have had in revitalizing and supporting and projects they are working on. For example, they released a Medicinal Plant Guide that had information in both Cree and English. An important part of making the guide was input from the elders. Another accomplishment was the dubbing of a movie in Cree. They are working on broadcasting a radio station that “will give listeners music and a voice for our languages.”

Add Bold Information to "Syntax"
Like many Native American languages, Cree features a complex polysynthetic morphology and syntax. A common grammatical feature in Cree dialects, in terms of sentence structure, is non-regulated word order. Word order is not governed by a specific set of rules or structure; instead, “subjects and objects are expressed by means of inflection on the verb”.[12] Subject, Verb, and Object (SVO) in a sentence can vary in order, for example, SVO, VOS, OVS, and SOV.[12][13] '''This means that changing the word order in Cree can place emphasis on different pieces of the sentence (Wolfart & Carroll, 1973). Wolfhart and Carroll (1973) give the following example by transposing the two Cree words:'''

Kakwēcimēw kisēýiniwa → He asked the old man.

Kisēýiniwa kakwēcimēw → It was the old man he asked.