Maps of Saulteaux

Canada and Alaska: Languages and Intercommunication (Bakker)



Canada and Alaska: Languages and Intercommunication

Source:   Bakker, Peter and Robert A Papen. 1996. Canada and Alaska: Languages and Intercommunication, in Wurm, Stephen Adolphe, Peter Mühlhäusler, and Darrell Trevor Tryon (Ed) Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. I, Maps. Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Date Digitized:   2010
Map Description:
Illustrated here are a series of boundaries of native American language groups in Canada and Alaska. The arrows indicate directions of communication and cultural or language influence as hypothesized by Bakker and Papen (1996).


Note: Scanned or downloaded images have been geo-registered for compatibility with our project interface. Slight imperfections are an inevitable result of the registration process. View original image(s) to see the unaltered map(s).

Canada: Native Peoples of the Subarctic Region


Native People: Subarctic

Source:   First Peoples of Canada's website as adapted from The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Copyright Status:   Goldi Productions Ltd. 2007
Date Downloaded:   09-29-2010

Map Description:
This map illustrates the first peoples of Canada before European contact. The Eastern Subarctic groups spoke Algonquian, while the Western Subarctic people spoke Athapascan. Scholars estimate that less than 60,000 people inhabited this area at the time.



Note: Scanned or downloaded images have been geo-registered for compatibility with our project interface. Slight imperfections are an inevitable result of the registration process. View original image(s) to see the unaltered map(s).

Languages of the Metis



Languages of the Metis

Source:   Bakker, Peter and Robert A Papen. 1996. Michif Language and Other Languages of the Canadian Metis, in Wurm, Stephen Adolphe, Peter Mühlhäusler, and Darrell Trevor Tryon (Ed) Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. I, Maps. Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Copyright Status:   1996
Date Digitized:   August, 2010

Map Description:
This map shows the distribution and dispersal of the languages of the Métis. The term Métis is used to refer to any person of mixed Amerindian and European descent and specifically to descendants of French-speaking fur traders or 'voyageurs' from New France (now Eastern Canada) who stayed in the Western Canadian prairies from the late 18th century onwards, married Amerindian women and had families with them. The term is also used for several of the languages spoken by the Métis, who number about 100,000 and live mostly in the prairies in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories and in North Dakota and Montana in the United States. Since many Métis were nomads, they can also be found as far south as the Grand Ronde Reservation in Oregon. In spite of their lack of a common language, the Métis do indeed form an ethnic group. Part of their shared history is the fact that they centered in the early 1800s around the Red River Settlement which is close to present day Winnipeg. (Bakker and Papen, 1996).


Note: Scanned or downloaded images have been geo-registered for compatibility with our project interface. Slight imperfections are an inevitable result of the registration process. View original image(s) to see the unaltered map(s).

Languages of the Metis



Languages of the Metis

Source:   Bakker, Peter and Robert A Papen. 1996. Michif Language and Other Languages of the Canadian Metis, in Wurm, Stephen Adolphe, Peter Mühlhäusler, and Darrell Trevor Tryon (Ed) Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. I, Maps. Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Copyright Status:   1996
Date Digitized:   August, 2010

Map Description:
This map shows the distribution and dispersal of the languages of the Métis. The term Métis is used to refer to any person of mixed Amerindian and European descent and specifically to descendants of French-speaking fur traders or 'voyageurs' from New France (now Eastern Canada) who stayed in the Western Canadian prairies from the late 18th century onwards, married Amerindian women and had families with them. The term is also used for several of the languages spoken by the Métis, who number about 100,000 and live mostly in the prairies in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories and in North Dakota and Montana in the United States. Since many Métis were nomads, they can also be found as far south as the Grand Ronde Reservation in Oregon. In spite of their lack of a common language, the Métis do indeed form an ethnic group. Part of their shared history is the fact that they centered in the early 1800s around the Red River Settlement which is close to present day Winnipeg. (Bakker and Papen, 1996).


Note: Scanned or downloaded images have been geo-registered for compatibility with our project interface. Slight imperfections are an inevitable result of the registration process. View original image(s) to see the unaltered map(s).

Northern North America: Algic: Contemporary



Algic in Contemporary Northern North America

Source:   Golla, Victor, Ives Goddard, Lyle Camplbell, Marianne Mithun and Mauricio Mixco. 2007. North America. In R. E. Asher & Christopher Moseley (eds.), Atlas of the World's Languages. 42. Oxford: Routledge.
Date Digitized:   May 2010.

Map Description:
The polygons and points represent concentrations of first-language speakers of Algic languages. Polygons represent land or areas primarily occupied by first-language speakers whereas points show communities with varying numbers of speakers.

This original map was made by vectorizing data from the MultiTree language database and the Atlas of the World's Languages.


Other resources related to this project:
This folder (Northern North America: Contemporary) contains other maps showing contemporary linguistic subgroups. The maps may be overlaid on each other for a more complete picture. The southern distribution of Algic languages (originally shown in a different map in Asher & Moseley) has been included here for completeness.


Note: Scanned or downloaded images have been geo-registered for compatibility with our project interface. Slight imperfections are an inevitable result of the registration process. Color selections used in this map are advised by ColorBrewer.

Northern North America: Algic: Time of contact



Algic in Northern North America at the Time of Contact

Source:   Golla, Victor, Ives Goddard, Lyle Camplbell, Marianne Mithun and Mauricio Mixco. 2007. North America. In R. E. Asher and Christopher Moseley (Eds.), Atlas of the World's Languages. 41. Oxford: Routledge.
Date Digitized:   May 2010.

Map Description:
The polygons represent areas where Algic languages were spoken when they were first encountered and knowledge of them was recorded by Europeans.

This original map was made by vectorizing data from the MultiTree language database and the Atlas of the World's Languages.


Other resources related to this project:
This folder, "Northern North America: Time of Contact", contains other maps showing linguistic subgroups at the time of contact. The maps may be overlaid on each other for a more complete picture. In addition, the folder "North America: Time of Contact" contains a map showing the southern distribution of Algic languages at the time of contact.


Note: Scanned or downloaded images have been geo-registered for compatibility with our project interface. Slight imperfections are an inevitable result of the registration process. Color selections used in this map are advised by ColorBrewer.

The UNESCO Database of Endangered Languages (UNESCO)

The UNESCO Database of Endangered Languages

Map Creator:   LINGUIST List (Anthony Aristar)
Data Source:   Mosely Christopher. 2010. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, 3rd edn. Paris, UNESCO Publishing, Online version. http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas/ (29 November 2010)
Contact:   llmaplinguistlist.org
Usage Notes/Copyright Status:   Used by Permission
Date Created:   29 November 2010

Map Description:
UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger is a database intended to raise awareness about language endangerment and the need to safeguard the world’s linguistic diversity among policy-makers, speaker communities and the general public, and to be a tool to monitor the status of endangered languages and the trends in linguistic diversity at the global level.

Degrees of endangerment
The map designates the degrees of endangerment as based on UNESCO’s Language Vitality and Endangerment framework.

This establishes six degrees of vitality/endangerment based on nine factors. Of these factors, the most salient is that of intergenerational transmission.

Degree of endangerment Intergenerational Language Transmission
safe language is spoken by all generations; intergenerational transmission is uninterrupted
>> not included in the map
vulnerable most children speak the language, but it may be restricted to certain domains (e.g., home)
definitely endangered children no longer learn the language as mother tongue in the home
severely endangered language is spoken by grandparents and older generations; while the parent generation may understand it, they do not speak it to children or among themselves
critically endangered the youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently
extinct there are no speakers left
>> included in the Atlas if presumably extinct since the 1950s




Note: Scanned or downloaded images have been geo-registered for compatibility with our project interface. Slight imperfections are an inevitable result of the registration process.