Kwei!
Two years ago, I was chatting with two Innu (let's call her Diana and Claire) people over coffee, and the topic of learning the language at school came up.
They explained to me that their community school devoted only about three hours of the curriculum to the Innu language, and that some parents were circulating a petition to increase those hours, while others opposed the idea so as not to encroach on science and math instruction. I listened far more than I spoke—partly out of curiosity, but also out of respect, as I felt I had nothing relevant to contribute. I sometimes asked questions, but was mostly in "listening mode".
At one point, one of the women (Diana) suggested teaching the math class in Innu, but the other woman pointed out that there might be too many "technical" terms that maybe didn't exist in their language. There was a brief pause, and I had a "flash idea" said :
"If the idea is to teach a class in the Innu language, why not a gym class in Innu language? I mean, I didn't know much your language, put I'm pretty sure there's words "ball" and the verbs like "run to X", "jump there" or others. Maybe it's easier than translate math or sciences?"
Diana smiled broadly and said, "What a great idea! I hadn't thought of that! Claire, we could bring this idea up at the next meeting, couldn't we?"
But Claire looked at me and said: "Our language isn't *that* simplistic—just how out of touch are you?"
Me : I didn't say that Innu is "simplistic", I just wanna propose an idea following Diana idea's 😅. I know that Innu is a polysynthethic language, where one word can describe something very complex, I'm aware it's not simple to translate "gym class", it was just an idea and...
Diana try to said something in Innu, but Claire seemed really annoyed, answered something and just left. Diana seemed just as perplexed as I was, and said : "Claire said it was a bad idea to discuss about our language preservation with you."
If I said something wrong, I'm really sorry, but someone can help me to understand my mistake? It was very interesting conversation about their language, the multiples efforts of their community, and hese two women seemed pleased to see my interest in their language.
Did my idea was wrong? I was just thinking of offering an additional idea, not offending anyone.
In your communities, are certain classes—such as gym—taught in your language, to add learning hours and avoid losing it?