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Reference.org
Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute
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<p>Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute (CILLDI) - an intensive annual "summer school for Indigenous language activists, speakers, linguists, and teachers" - hosted at the <a href="/facts/University_of_Alberta/08ERvE5c">University of Alberta</a>, <a href="/facts/Edmonton/ePFNJlBN">Edmonton</a> - is a "multicultural, cross-linguistic, interdisciplinary, inter-regional, inter-generational" initiative. CILLDI was established in 1999 with one Cree language course offered by Cree speaker Donna Paskemin. By 2016 over 600 CILLDI students representing nearly 30 Canadian Indigenous languages had participated in the program and it had become the "most national (and international) of similar language revitalization programs in Canada aimed at the promotion of First Peoples languages." CILLDI - a joint venture between the <a href="/facts/University_of_Alberta/08ERvE5c">University of Alberta</a> and the <a href="/facts/University_of_Saskatchewan/8P2J86bV">University of Saskatchewan</a> - responds to "different sociolinguistic situations in language communities under threat" and includes three faculties at the University of Alberta in Edmonton - Arts, Education, and Native Studies. CILLDI provides practical training to students which is "directly implemented back in the community." Initiatives like CILLDI were formed against the backdrop of a projection of a catastrophic and rapid decline of languages in the twenty-first century. </p>