For most people, “Quebec” is synonymous with “French.” Quebec is famous for being Canada’s francophone hotspot, with a large portion of the population unable to speak English. However, French is not the only native language in Quebec. In addition to a minority of English native speakers, a number of Quebec residents also speak an indigenous language as their mother tongue. One of these indigenous languages is Atikamekw.
Atikamekw is spoken by around 6000 people, which, believe it or not, makes it one of the most widely spoken indigenous languages in Canada. In fact, since it’s spoken by the vast majority of Atikamekw people, it’s also one of the least threatened indigenous languages in the country. But that doesn’t mean that the language doesn’t face threats—especially since speakers generally need to learn French to participate in wider Quebecois society. Atikamekw’s low number of speakers means there aren’t a lot of translation services available for the language, which we at TranslationServices.com find unfortunate. We’ve launched our own Atikamekw translation team to address the scarcity of translation services for the language.
Wondering how much an Atikamekw translation may cost? You can request a free quote from us today.
Atikamekw is a proud indigenous language.
Spoken in southwestern Quebec, Canada, Atikamekw comes from the Algonquian family of languages, meaning it’s related to other major indigenous languages in Canada, such as Ojibwe, Mi’kmaq, and Cree. In fact, Atikamekw is sometimes considered a dialect of Cree, although it exhibits a large number of loanwords from nearby Ojibwe. Atikamekw shares the typical Algonquian traits of grammatical complexity and polysynthetic nature, with a ton of inflection to express grammatical relationships.
Atikamekw, like many other Native American languages, makes a distinction between living beings and inanimate objects, sometimes applying different grammatical markers or rules. Atikamekw also recognizes inalienable possession for certain nouns, such as body parts or kinship terms, meaning these words must always be used with a possessive prefix. Regarding pronouns, Atikamekw has two distinct first-person plural pronouns: one includes the listener, and one excludes them. Additionally, the language has what is sometimes called a “fourth person,” which is used to distinguish two different third-party referents, avoiding confusion that can be found in English.
Our Atikamekw translators are proud native speakers of this indigenous language, so you don’t have to worry about the language’s complex grammatical structure tripping them up.
What kind of Atikamekw translation are you looking for?
Our Atikamekw translators are passionate about helping clients find the right solution for your Atikamekw translation project, regardless of the content or specifications. For example, do you have a historical document in Atikamekw that you’d like to translate for academic purposes? Or do you want to translate traditional Atikamekw to show off the beauty of Atikamekw culture to others in Canada? Our translators will translate your documents faithfully from Atikamekw to English. On the flip side, do you want to translate a questionnaire into Atikamekw so you can conduct a survey on Atikamekw speakers? Or would you like to translate books, educational material, websites, apps, games, and more into Atikamekw so speakers and learners of this rich language have more access to Atikamekw-language content? Our translators are ready to smoothly translate any English content into natural-sounding Atikamekw.
With our Atikamekw translation team at the ready, feel free to reach out anytime and get started with Atikamekw translation.