Aboriginal languages in Canada

Norris Research was contracted to provide the Canadian content to UNESCO, for the third edition of the UNESCO "Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger".  Material was submitted in December 2008, and published in both print format and online.

Subsequent work for Canadian Heritage produced a few revisions to the language classification used for the UNESCO Atlas.  A written report was delivered to Canadian Heritage in January, 2011.

A second edition of the Canadian Heritage report was prepared, which corrected some errors and omissions.  It was finalised in April 2012.

A third edition was prepared in March 2016.  The only changes from the second edition involve the hierarchical language classification, which was modified to be consistent with the soon-to-be-updated online UNESCO atlas.

Report and Reference Manual on Documentation and Classification of Aboriginal Languages in Canada

  • Main report (pdf)
  • Appendices (excluding A and J) (pdf)
  • Appendix A (pdf)
  • Appendix J (pdf)

The material in the appendices should be considered as a "work in progress".  There is still much to be done to address issues of autonyms, xenonyms and spelling variants.

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