There is general agreement that Canada's aboriginal languages may be grouped into eleven distinct families and isolates. Cook (this volume) provides a list of over fifty aboriginal languages and indicates in which areas they are spoken; none of the families is uniquely contained within the Canadian borders. The Eskimo-Aleut family is represented by Inuktitut, a dialect continuum stretching across the Canadian Arctic (and into Alaska), also referred to as Eskimo. Languages belonging to the Iroquoian family are located in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. The Algonquian family is represented by a wide array of languages spoken in a domain stretching from Alberta to the Maritimes. The remaining eight language families are to be found only in western Canada. Siouan and Athapaskan languages are spoken in the prairies, but the latter group of languages is mostly found in the Northwest Territories, the Yukon and British Columbia. Six language groups (three isolates, Haida, Tlingit and Kutenai, as well as the Salishan, Tsimshian and Wakashan families) are to be found only in British Columbia, an area of great linguistic complexity.

WHO ARE THE CANADIAN ABORIGINAL PEOPLE?

According to the 1991 Canadian census, slightly over one million (1,016,335) people declared aboriginal origins, roughly 3.8 per cent of the Canadian population (Statistics Canada, 1995).