Why APTN's new channel is a game-changer for Indigenous language learning

This month, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) is celebrating its 25th anniversary with the launch of APTN Languages, a channel dedicated to programming in 18 different Indigenous languages.

Today on Commotion, APTN co-founder Jim Compton, musician Marek Tyler and culture critic Riley Yesno join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about how this new channel can contribute to Indigenous language revitalization.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Jim, I want to start us off with APTN Languages, this new channel that is entirely in Indigenous languages. Cree, Ojibwe and Inuktitut are among the 18 languages that are going to be featured. That's an incredible feat. What do you think the strategy is behind launching this channel? What's the story that this channel is trying to tell?

Jim: Well, you've got to look at why we launched in the first place. I mean, we did launch with the idea that we would tap into the Aboriginal language envelope, which is still there. We wanted to create programming in our Aboriginal languages…. The programming that we did initially was our stories, our culture and our language. I think that's important, and it launched so many careers within the Canadian broadcasting landscape.

But I think this channel gives us an opportunity to go back to the communities and do it from the ground up, from the grassroots up. That would include what's important within those First Nations, and also within the cities where a lot of us live. And so that programming can help reinvigorate the languages that we need to call ourselves Cree, Ojibwe, Mi'kmaq, Mohawk and what have you.

Elamin: I really like the way that you set that up because, in many ways, it sort of feels like the APTN project has always been leading up to this moment, where there's an entire channel that is only programming Indigenous languages. It feels like a natural sort of evolution, if you will.

Marek, you've been on the show before as a cultural commentator, but also you're a musician. From all the different hats that you wear, all the different roles that you play, what role do you think television can play in revitalizing a language?

Marek: I think it normalizes it. The way I think about it is, when we use these languages in everyday life, we make them broader to larger audiences. So when they may hear a Nêhiyawêwin word, they go, "Oh, I've heard that before. I know that 'tānisi' means 'how you doing?'" … You don't feel like the language is being othered in any way. I also think about, how much French does everyone on this panel know just through osmosis of all the broadcasters? Like, we know a lot of French because of what we've seen through broadcasting over the years.

Elamin: Just the mere existence of it, right?

Marek: Exactly, or we'll see it on cereal boxes or whatever it might be. There are a lot of ways that French has been normalized in English society, and hopefully this step from APTN really speaks to that. But what I really want to get to is, it starts destigmatizing the learning of language. What I mean by that is, you're not feeling shame or being shamed for trying to speak your language. It's starting to be normalized. I am an English first language speaker, which means when I speak in Cree, in Nêhiyawêwin, I have an English accent. We've heard English spoken with a lot of different accents; we don't shame them for trying or saying what they're doing. We applaud them for speaking English.

So this way, I think it starts destigmatizing trying to speak, and understanding and giving yourself permission to do so, and knowing that our grandmothers and grandfathers won't shame us for trying to speak our language, even though we might speak in an English accent. They're just very happy that you're trying. So for me, TV can play a significant role in destigmatizing our languages, and support us trying to learn. That's what I'm excited about.

Elamin: Riley, what role do you think TV can play in revitalizing the language?

Riley: I think it's big. I'm somebody who is the first generation in my family to not be able to speak Anishinaabemowin fluently, and so it's been really important to me especially as an adult to try and learn the language. I did everything that I felt like was available: I went to language camp, I took university classes, I try to read books that are in the language. But if you speak to anybody who's tried to learn a second language, they'll tell you [to] go watch YouTube videos in that language — go try and watch French TV, for example. And that's just not something to date that's been really readily available for people like me. I know that I'm not an anomaly amongst a younger generation of Indigenous people who've been interrupted from language learning, and so having this resource out there is amazing.

I think that also in recent years, what Indigenous people have proven is that if you build it, we will come. I think about Star Wars dubbed in Ojibwe and how well-received that was, or hockey games commentated in Cree and how many people tuned in for that. And so the appetite is there. And more so than even just a really important thing ethically around language revitalization and culturally, I think could also be very profitable. I think we underestimate how hungry people are for this.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jane van Koeverden.