Canada is famous for its bilingualism, but in fact, Canada speaks far more languages than just English and French. Of course, there are all the immigrant languages, spoken by newcomers from countries all over the world, but Canada also features several dozen indigenous languages that are still spoken today, sometimes by sizable communities of people passionate about their native language. Cree is the largest indigenous language in Canada, but it’s more accurately described as a language group split up into several individual languages—and Plains Cree is the largest.
Estimates for the number of native Plains Cree speakers vary, especially since the umbrella of “Cree” can obscure details about individual Cree languages, but Plains Cree likely has around 34,000 native speakers. Plains Cree is endangered, like most other indigenous languages in Canada and the US, but it’s still used quite vigorously, with the total number of speakers gradually increasing along with the population. Of course, though, virtually all Plains Cree speakers also speak English, and that can pose a serious threat to the language’s long-term vitality. We at TranslationServices.com are proud to help support Plains Cree with our new Plains Cree translation services.
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Plains Cree: Cree’s largest variant
Spoken by an estimated tens of thousands of people in the western Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, as well as the northwestern U.S. state of Montana, Plains Cree is one of the biggest indigenous languages in Canada and the US. It strongly resembles other western forms of Cree, such as Woods Cree, Swampy Cree, and Moose Cree, with mutual intelligibility generally very high. The Cree cluster comes from the larger Algonquian language family, a prominent Amerindian language family in Canada and the northeastern US, of which Ojibwe and Mi’kmaq are also members.
Plains Cree features an extremely complex grammatical structure that can render translation jobs difficult. While the basic word order is subject-object-verb, all other word orders are also possible, as grammatical markings on words make their role in the sentence clear. In Plains Cree, both the subject and object are marked on the verb, with each combination of subject and object receiving its own marker, often in the form of both a prefix and suffix. Also, Plains Cree features a fourth person in addition to the normal first, second, and third persons, with fourth-person markers referring to a second third person. Indeed, translating to and from Plains Cree is a challenge—but for our native-speaking translators, it’s an easily manageable one.
What kind of Plains Cree translations would you like?
Our mission is to provide you with the Plains Cree translations that you need for your project to succeed, no matter what it is. We’ve hired experienced and passionate Plains Cree translators who speak the language as their mother tongue, with representatives from all over Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Montana. If you’re looking for a translator from a particular area, simply let us know, and we’ll do our best to match you up. We offer pinpoint translation services both to and from Plains Cree, helping you break down the language barrier from either side.
Thanks to our diverse and flexible team, we also offer Plains Cree translation services in a range of specialties. Of course, our scope is limited by the relatively small speaker community, but within the confines of possibility, we try to cater to as many niches as possible. Simply let us know if you’re looking for a specialist in academic translation, business translation, literary translation, localization, or any particular field that may contain technical jargon. We always do our best to match clients to the most suitable Plains Cree translator on our team for their unique project.
Would you like to take advantage of our bespoke Plains Cree translation services? Get started today by sending us a message!