Canada is a highly multilingual country, with the extent of its linguistic landscape stretching far beyond the official English and French. Not only can you find large immigrant communities in major cities that speak languages like Mandarin or Hindi, but the country also abounds with indigenous languages that, despite generally flying beneath the radar, are still spoken collectively by more than 250,000 Canadians. Canada’s biggest indigenous language is Cree, and Woods Cree is one of its most prominent varieties.
Canada’s 2016 census recorded around 116,000 native speakers of Cree, but ascertaining figures for the particular Cree varieties is more difficult. Rather than a single language, Cree is best conceptualized as a dialect continuum—in other words, a group of closely related and often mutually intelligible languages. Plains Cree is the biggest variant of Cree, but Woods Cree is likely second, with anywhere between 2,600 and 35,000 native speakers (although it’s most likely on the higher end). Woods Cree is still spoken vigorously by its community, but naturally, it’s threatened by the prestige of English, which most Woods Cree speakers also know. That’s why we at TranslationServices.com are so proud to support Woods Cree, unveiling our new Woods Cree translation services today.
Why not reach out and ask about a free quote for our Woods Cree Translation services today?
Woods Cree: Discover the Cree of Saskatchewan
Woods Cree is spoken in northern areas of the western Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba, but Saskatchewan accounts for the majority of Woods Cree speakers. The language is closely related to other nearby variants of Cree, such as Plains Cree or Swampy Cree—in fact, speakers of these different varieties of Cree can usually understand each other easily. Woods Cree can be written in both the Latin alphabet and Cree syllabics, although the Latin alphabet is slowly winning out as Woods Cree is increasingly taught at Canadian schools and universities.
Woods Cree and all other Cree languages are members of the Algonquian language family, which means it’s related to other major indigenous languages in Canada, such as Ojibwe and Mi’kmaq. The grammatical structure is extremely complex, with a high degree of inflection, which allows Woods Cree speakers quite a bit of freedom in word order. Woods Cree also marks both the subject and object on the verb and has a fourth-person pronoun in addition to the regular first, second, and third persons—the fourth-person pronoun refers to an additional third person. It’s certainly not easy to translate to and from Woods Cree, but our team members are native speakers with a passion for translating their language.
We’re committed to providing flexibility in our Woods Cree translation services.
Whatever you’re looking for in Woods Cree translation services, we’re determined to help you. Our translators are native speakers who hail from different parts of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba, allowing for wide coverage of different Woods Cree varieties. If you’re looking for a specific locale, let us know, and we’ll try to match you with the most suitable member of our team. We work with translation projects both to and from Woods Cree for content of all types, so we’re confident our team can serve you.
We also, to the best of our ability, provide specialized translation services, such as academic translation, business translation, literary translation, and localization services, so if you’re looking for anything niche, don’t hesitate to make a request. Due to the limited number of Woods Cree speakers, we can’t guarantee that we can always accommodate special requests, but we will always give it our best shot. The same applies if your document contains technical or esoteric language—we may just have someone on our team who knows your field well, so feel free to ask.
If you’re looking for excellence in Woods Cree translation services, you’ve come to the right place. Get started today by placing an order with us!