LINDA SIOUI
Linda Sioui was born in 1960 and has a degree in sociology from the University of Ottawa. Her particular field of interest is the Huron language. In 1983, she was part of a team that worked on compiling the field notes of Quebec ethnologist Marius Barbeau (Huron- Wyandot Collection; unpublished catalogue) for the Canadian Museum of Civilization, then traveled to visit the Wyandots in Oklahoma. She is currently with the Association of Native Friendship Centres of Quebec, where she works as a bilingual information officer.
The Huron language, said the Jesuit historian Charlevoix, has such abundance, energy, and nobility as one might never find united in any of the beautiful languages that we know, and those whose language it is, although reduced to a handful of persons, still have in their souls an elevation more tantamount to the majesty of their language than to the sorrowful state to which they are reduced. Some have believed that they discovered Huron to be related to Hebrew; others, more numerous, have suggested that it has the same origin as Greek; but nothing is so frivolous as the evidence that they bring forward. (Lindsay, 1900: 252-3).
Of all the speculations that ever were advanced concerning the origin of the Huron language, those of an ancient relationship with Semitic or Indo- European languages are rejected today, judged as baseless. What does come to light from the different linguistic surveys is that the Huron language is related to the other Iroquoian languages. Some have even suggested that the Huron language was the original language from which the other Iroquoian languages stemmed. This affirmation seems to be based on an old Huronic tradition of relating to the other Amerindian groups from a linguistic point of view. Thus the Neutrals were called Attiwandaronk by the Huron, which means ‘those with similar speech’. However, it is evident that each Iroquoian language was innovative and followed its own course of development, which make~ it impossible for anyone of them to lay claim to the original form, which was spoken over 2000 years ago.
The Huron language was the language of the Amerindians who were originally encountered by Samuel de Champlain (around 1615), who inhabited the stretch of territory between lakes Simcoe and Huron, and the Holland Marsh (often flooded), today known under the name of Simcoe County, in Ontario. These Amerindians (whose original name of Wendat probably meant ‘islanders’) formed a confederation of five groups (the peoples of Clay, Cord, Rock, Deer and Bear) speaking similar dialects. When the fur trade was at its peak in New France (the first half of the 17th century), Huron was undoubtedly the trade language for anyone who wanted to trade with the Huron people, who then acted as spokesmen for this great trade’ for all the Aboriginals. Brother Gabriel Sagard Theodat (Recollet) mentioned in this regard:
They [the Nippising Amerindians] are rather good people and know both languages, Huron and their own, while the Huron do not, nor do they learn any language other than their own, whether from negligence, or because they have less business with their neighbours than their neighbours have with them. (Lindsay, 1900: 253)
So one can say that the Huron language was the language ‘par excellence’ of diplomacy and trade during the first half of the 17th century, a language also known to Aboriginal groups who were linguistically very different from the Huron.
A knowledge of the Huron language was not only necessary for political and commercial matters, but was also compulsory for European missionaries, who were eager for conversions. Dictionaries, lexicons and grammars assumed great importance for these priests during the summer period, when the traditional occupations drew the people away from their villages (Tooker, 1967: 71). One noteworthy work was the manuscript dictionary of the Recollet Le Caron, begun in 1615 and completed in 1632 at the home of Denis Moreau. Brother Sagard, who furthered the study of the language from the great work of his predecessor, gives his readers the distinct impression that he was a sharp observer of the details of the phenomena that he observed and which form the background to the nomenclature of the vocabulary. Then followed the work of the Jesuit Jean de Brebeuf (nicknamed ‘Echon’ by the Huron), who dedicated almost 24 years of his ministry to the study of the language (1626-1649). The manuscripts he left include prayers, catechisms, orisons and liturgical chants, among them the celebrated carol Jesous Ahatonhia composed toward 1641, and kept by oral tradition among contemporary Huron. It is said that the melody is that of Une jeune pucelIe, a hymn formerly sung in France (Government of Ontario, Department of Tourism and Information, 1967). Likewise a dictionary of the dialect of the Bear nation, lost today, is attributed to Brebeuf.
As for Brother Chaumonot who followed a group of Huron from Quebec during the great diaspora, his work was mainly a sketch portrait of Huron grammar combined with a dictionary. On the matter of learning Huron, he was unable to prevent himself from making a remark like an earlier one by Brother Bressani: ‘I applied myself to making and comparing the precepts of that language, the most difficult of all in North America.’ Then he was to add later ‘[…] when I was sent to the Iroquois, whom I did not understand, I needed only a month to learn their language’ (Lounsbury, 1978: 334). Was Chaumonot then one of the first to have observed the apparent linguistic affinity between the Huron language and its Iroquoian sister languages?
The contribution of Brother Etienne de Carheil to the description of the Huron language consists of a rudimentary dictionary, including 970 verbal roots and an explanatory text which, was to serve equally well for the learning of the Iroquoian languages. As for his qualities as a linguist, it was said that ‘he spoke the Huron language with a rare elegance’ (Orphand, s.d.: 78).
The dictionary by Brother Pierre Potier (1748) should be considered rightly as an important source, since he worked among the Huron of Lorette as well as the Wyandot (one of the Huron groups that survived the destruction of old Huronia in 1649). Just as in the works of his predecessors, it was in Latin that Potier chose to explain the rules of Huron grammar.
The enormous contribution of the Canadian ethnologist Marius Barbeau consisted of recording numerous Huron and Wyandot songs (on an Edison phonograph), legends in the vernacular language, and a dictionary, as well as numerous ethnographic data at the beginning of the century.
It is certainly very important too to mention the work of the Reverend Arthur Edward Jones, who, with his book Sendake ehen (The Defunct Huronia), left a very detailed linguistic description of numerous Huron geographic names of villages and other places. This document was published in 1908 by the Bureau of Archives of the Province of Ontario. The historic references to the Huron language give the impression that this language is one of the best documented in North America.
Even so, gradually, the Huron language became a ‘church language’ up to the beginning of this century, rather as were Latin and biblical Hebrew.
However, it seems rather paradoxical that its death was at the hands of Christianity, as we can believe from this declaration of a Huron from Lorette to Mgr. Turgeon, in 1850: Our race continues to drop in numbers, and our language is nearly dead. We regret, we young people, what our parents did not teach us, and also, that we did not have a missionary who could have learned and insisted that we learn. We had to learn everything in French, prayers and catechism; that really helped its loss. (Lindsey, 1900: 249)
As for the last regular speakers of Huron, sources are not all in agreement, but Chief Nicolas Vincent is an obvious candidate as are Zacharie Vincent and Paul Picard (the father); as for the last who spoke, read and wrote it, Francois-Xavier Picard (his son) and Brother Prosper Vincent (one of Marius Barbeau’s main informants) are mentioned. Another is notary Paul Picard, who is credited with the modem translation of Brebeuf’s Huron carol (Vincent, 1984: 383). Historically speaking, the Huron language ‘died’ toward the end of the 19th or the start of the 20th century. As for Wyandot, it is interesting to observe that it was spoken up to the beginning of the 1960s (Tooker, 1978: 404), and could even have been spoken in 1974 (Wright, personal communication, Feb. 1990) in Oklahoma. Still today interested parties are debating the fate of this language which, people say, was characterised by prenasal consonants and very developed inflections, but which, apart from various songs, and a few known phrases and words, has fallen forever silent, supplanted forthwith for reasons of cultural survival by French in Quebec, and English in Ontario and the United States.
Those interested in the language include Marguerite Vincent ‘Tehariolina’, a Huron who dedicated a great part of her life to research and study of Huron language and customs, as borne out by her 1984 book, La nation huronne, son esprit, sa culture, son identite. In conjunction with Pierre H. Savignac, she produced, among other works, three major studies (unpubished) of Huron grammar and vocabulary. Others include Pierrette Lagarde, with her numerous articles and Le verbe huron, Roy A. Wright, whose doctoral thesis at Harvard University concerns the translation of Chaumonot’s Huron Grammar, as well as John Steckley, the author of numerous articles and a former student of Mr. Wright. Note should also be made of the keen interest shown by the Huron people in all matters concerning the rediscovery of their language and heritage at this time of emerging recognition of the regional autonomy of the Huron-Wendat nation. In such a sociocultural context, is the ‘revival’ of the language a possibility or a utopia?
‘A living language is a language that meets all the needs of a society in matters of oral and written communication’, affirms Yaakov Bentolila referring to the case of Hebrew. It is known that this language, almost dead for some 2000 years (for a long time it was only a written language recited in the synagogues), has regained the status of a natural language (spoken in the home) and a national language during the last 100 years, and is today spoken by over three million speakers (Bentolila, 1986: 26). For this nation, the recognition of the language arose out of the emancipation of the Jewish people throughout Europe, resulting in a resurgence of promotion of the cultural heritage. Even more, and this is possibly one of the reasons – if not the main reason -for the revival of this language; it represents, for Jews of different origins, the ‘common language’, the ‘link’ necessary to traditional communication, that is to say the ethnic and national identity.
However, the ‘revival’ of Hebrew was preceded by numerous failed attempts, before the successful efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922), who devoted himself to the question. He began his task with the basic tools at his disposal – excellent Hebrew grammars, and the rich literary heritage left by ancient Hebrew (the biblical literature, the Mishnah). What this language needed in order to become a living language was a modernized lexicon (creation of neologisms), literary standardization and codification (as a result of these choices and innovations), a national ideology, the strength of mind of pioneers, diffusion, teaching and the use of the language, and, above all, the goodwill of the community concerned. Since those Utopians failed to find a model for spoken Hebrew, they had to transpose the written phraseology into the mouths of the speakers, to the point where the language came naturally. This came with the following generations, hence the importance of teaching children in the schools for any programme of language regeneration.
Like Hebrew, the Huron language, to be reborn, requires collective goodwill, or at least a core of devoted persons, for languages do not exist without speakers. The creation of a ‘Huron language board’ could be envisaged (by analogy with the Quebec Office de la langue francaise) whose mandate would be to create new words and submit them to the community for approval or rejection. Furthermore, despite loans and neologisms, marks of a truly living, progressing language (whatever purists might say), it is essential that the basic grammar -the skeleton of the language -be respected, and be measured by an etymological dictionary (word building, verb bases, etc.). We are aware that Huron literature is rich, yet little known. Additionally, linguistic contributions could be made from the living Iroquoian languages. But we would want to be wary of simplistic reasoning, such as a tendency to borrow from a single language on the pretext that it is close to Huron. For in linguistics, when a language is more innovative in one domain, usually it is less so in another.
The success of reborn languages such as Hebrew has come in part from the fact that no pressure was exerted on the people, given that at the beginning the matter only concerned a core of interested individuals. People started to read in the vernacular language (biblical literature). Later, interest grew. The relearning of Huron would doubtless increase the pride of belonging to the nation at a time when negotiations are pointing to regional autonomy. It is likewise clear that, historically, the Huron have acquired a great will to survive as a community. This drive to survive could serve as a barometer to measure the chance the language has of surviving, should it in fact be relearned knowing as we do that it would be ‘plunged’ right into the French Quebec context. One must also understand that, unlike Hebrew, the Huron language cannot become vital to communication among the Huron, since French has already assumed that role. One of the aims of restoring the language would be to shed light on how the ancient Huron thought. Some say that language sometimes serves as a screen to avoid deep reflection on the future of one’s culture, or that it would be very much simpler to learn a language that is still spoken, such as Montagnais or Mohawk. However, as we have seen, the chances of successfully resurrecting Huron are good if we follow the path described previously. Then why excuse ourselves from attempting the ultimate effort? Afterward, we could declare like the Hebrews: ‘[…] we have truly the advantage of having a language in which we can, even at the present moment, write everything that we want and which we can also speak, if only we want to’ (Bentolila, 1986: 22).