[…] Ktunaxa — among many other languages — was pushed to the brink of extinction by Canada’s boarding schools for indigenous children. When Jimmie returned home from St. Eugene’s, she refused to speak her mother tongue.

“I remember telling my grandfather, the very person that told me and excited me about going to school, ‘Speak English, I don’t know what you’re saying,’” she says. “I was so brainwashed. And I know he was hurt by that.”

Years went by. Jimmie grew up, had children — and never spoke Ktunaxa with them.

“I still was suffering from all the strappings I got. If I want to say what happened, it was that my language was beaten out of me.”

It’s a painful chapter of Canadian history the government has grown to regret. In 2008, Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, issued an official apology to the First Nation people. The government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and paid reparations to people like Jimmie, who suffered years of abuse at the boarding schools. More.

Read the full story and listen to the podcast in PRI here: http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-08-18/new-generation-canadians-are-learning-language-and-not-all-them-are-tribal

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