woodland

Dale McCreery

20-May-2021

An example of the differences between (Southern) Michif and Cree

While we often talk about differences between languages or dialects, sometimes it can be useful to have something made visual. The following is a picture of two short texts – one in Michif from an elder in the Turtle Mountains, and the other a Plains Cree story. In the first story, there’s only six words that I’ve highlighted that a fluent (southern) Michif speaker would likely not know if they hadn’t been exposed to Cree previously, while for a Cree speaker listening to Michif, look how much is different.

In a later blog post I will go over the specific differences between Michif and Cree, looking at some clear examples from Northern Michif. Happy learning!