Amidst persistent fears the Stoney Nakoda language has become almost irreversibly endangered, Wild Rose MP Blake Richards announced Nov. 23 that close to $9,000 was being pledged to help preserve the Aboriginal language.

Richards was speaking on behalf of the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.

“This initiative will ultimately serve to intensify the importance of preservation and maintenance of the Nakoda language for educational programs and for members of the Stoney-Nakoda community,” Richards said.

The funds will be directed to the Rocky Mountain Nakoda Project for Language and Culture Preservation for their Stoney Nakoda Language Preservation Project.

But the announcement was met with scepticism by Greg Two Young Men, a member of the Nakoda Stoney Owabi (NSO) group, a team that has been working on a Stoney dictionary for almost three years.

“This is news to me,” he said. “And it’s happened before that we’ve tried to get external financial support and the money’s gone somewhere else.”

Two Young Men said he’s also concerned about how the cash will be administered, because he doesn’t believe the three bands work particularly well together.

“They don’t agree on anything, and you can’t soar like an eagle when you’re flying with turkeys,” he said.

Government officials say the cash will enable the language preservationists to transcribe oral recordings to a written Nakoda format.

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