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For other uses, see Cree (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with the Creek people. Cree is one of the largest group of First Nations/Aboriginals in North America, located mainly across Canada.[1] In the United States, this Algonquian-speaking people lived historically from Minnesota westward. Today they live mostly in Montana.[2] The Cree are generally divided into 8 major groups: Naskapi, Montagnais, Attikamekw, James Bay Cree, Moose Cree, Swampy Cree, Woods Cree and Plains Cree. However, the Cree referred to themselves collectively as Nēhilawē[3] (those who speak our language). They called themselves "Cree" only when speaking English or French.[4] Skilled American bison hunters and horsemen, the Plains Cree were allied with the Assiniboine and the Saulteaux before encountering English, Scots (especially Orcadian) and French settlers in the 16th century.
[edit] Name The name "Cree" is an exonym derived from the French Christenaux (also as Knistenaux, Cristeneaux and many other variations) that is commonly shortened to "Cri",[5] after their village of Kenisteniwak.[6] However, among the Cree, depending on the community, they may call themselves the Nehiyaw, Nehithaw, Nehilaw, Nehinaw, Ininiw, Ililiw, Iynu or Iyyu. These peoples can be divided into two major groups: those who identify themselves using a derivative of their historical appellation Nēhilawē (meaning "[those who] speak our Nation's language") and those identifying themselves using a derivative of their historical appellation Iliniw (meaning "person" or "man").[7] Both groups share a common ancestry but are now divided mainly along linguistic lines. Those residing west of the Ontario border to the Rocky Mountains tend to call themselves the first name, Nehilaw. The second group includes the Rocky Cree sub-group of the Swampy Cree and one group residing in Quebec, who are mistakenly called Attikamek but who self-identify as Nehiraw, plus all the groups east of James Bay, who tend to call themselves Iliniw, the term for man.[citation needed] [edit] LanguageMain article: Cree language  The Cree language (also known as Cree-Montagnais, Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi) is the name for a group of closely related Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories to Labrador, making it the most widely spoken aboriginal language in Canada.[8] Despite numerous speakers within this wide area, the only region where Cree has official status is in the Northwest Territories alongside eight other aboriginal languages.[9][10] The aforementioned two major groups speak a mutually intelligible Cree dialect continuum, which can be divided by many criteria. In a dialect continuum, "It is not so much a language, as a chain of dialects, where speakers from one community can very easily understand their neighbours, but a Plains Cree speaker from Alberta would find a Québec Cree speaker difficult to speak to without practice."[11] One major division between the groups is that the Eastern group palatalizes the sound /k/ to either /ts/ (c) or to /tʃ/ (č) when it precedes front vowels. There is also a major difference in grammatical vocabulary (particles) between the groups. Within both groups, another set of variations has arisen around the pronunciation of the Proto-Algonquian phoneme *l, which can be realized as /l/, /r/, /y/, /n/ or /ð/ (th) by different groups. Yet in other dialects, the distinction between /e:/ (ē) and /i:/ (ī) has been lost, merging to the latter. In more western dialects, the distinction between /s/ and /ʃ/ (š) has been lost, both merging to the former. If you compare the consonants /p/ /t/ /c/ and /k/*[12] to their English counterparts, it is noticeable that there is little distinction of voicing. In English, voicing marks the difference of meaning in words such as bin : pin. Since there is not distinction of voicing in Cree, it is common for variants of /t/ to sound more like /d/ without any difference in meaning.[13] [edit] In Canada The Cree are the largest group of First Nations in Canada, with over 200,000 members and 135 registered bands.[14] This population may be due to the Cree's traditional openness to inter-tribal marriage. Together, their reserve lands are the largest of any First Nations group in the country.[14] The largest Cree band and the second largest First Nations Band in Canada after the Six Nations Iroquois is the Lac La Ronge Band in northern Saskatchewan. The Métis (from French Métis - any person of mixed ancestry) are people of mixed ancestry, such as Nehiyaw (or Anishinaabe) and French, English, or Scottish heritage. According to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the Métis were historically the children of French fur traders and Nehiyaw women or, from unions of English or Scottish traders and northern Dene women (Anglo-Métis). Generally in academic circles, the term Métis can be used to refer to any combination of persons of mixed Native American and European heritage, although historical definitions for Métis remain. Canada's Indian and Northern Affairs broadly define Métis as those persons of mixed First Nation and European ancestry. [edit] In the United StatesThough at one time located in northern Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana, today the Cree population in the United States can be found as part of the Chippewa Cree tribe, located on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation in Montana. The reservation is shared with the Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians who form the "Chippewa" half of the Chippewa Cree tribe. Traditionally, the southern limits of the Cree Territory in the United States were the Missouri River and the Milk River in Montana. [edit] Cree First Nations [edit] Notable Cree
See: Cree people [edit] See also
[edit] References
Sacred Legends of the Sandy Lake Cree. James R. Stevens, McClelland and Stewart Ltd, 1971 [edit] External links
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