100 Days of Cree
WHERE TO SHOP? Strong Nations online
Synopsis:
As an Elder once said, "Learn one Cree word a day for 100 days, and emerge a different person."
In 100 Days of Cree, Neal McLeod offers us a portal into another way of understanding the universe--and our place within it--while demonstrating why this funny, vibrant, and sometimes salacious language is "the sexiest of them all" (according to Tomson Highway).
Based on a series of Facebook posts, the 100 short chapters or "days" in the book present a chain of related words, some dealing with the traditional--the buffalo hunt, the seasons--and others cheekily capturing the detritus of modern life--from Internet slang to Johnny Cash songs to Viagra.
The result is both an introduction to the most widely spoken Indigenous language in Canada and the opportunity to see the world, and ourselves, in another way.
Reviews
"The nonfiction book is divided into 100
themes and offers Cree words and English explanations for everything
from traditional subjects such as powwows and medicine to modern
subjects such as Facebook and Star Wars. It also includes a guide to
pronunciation written by Arok Wolvengrey, a linguist and the author of a
Cree-English dictionary. 'When we think about indigenous languages,
there’s a part of us that thinks they’re dying languages, ' URP
publisher Bruce Walsh said. 'And then this manuscript comes in that
demonstrates a living, vital language.' McLeod said that he and
Wolvengrey worked to keep a balance between traditional usage and modern
adaptations. 'To revitalize our languages, we have to do two things: we
have to document the classical terminology, because within that
terminology are all of our metaphors and idioms; but we also have to
think of how to put old words together, to coin words, to describe the
contemporary world.'" 
— Laura Godfrey, Publishers Weekly
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