ELAN is an official minority language organization within a country that only recognizes two languages as official. ELAN is located in Tiohtiak:ke, which is the original name for Montreal in Kanien’keha:ka, the language of the Mohawk—also known as Mooniyang, which is the Anishinaabeg name given to the city by the Algonquin. While we are based in this city, our projects have also taken place in many regions across Quebec.
We would also like to acknowledge the important work being done by First Nations to revive the traditional languages of these territories, and their advocacy for the official status of Indigenous languages. Kanien’keha:ka and Anishinaabeg are but two of the original languages of this province, in which English and French are colonial languages. The province that we know as Quebec is an amalgamation of the traditional territories of the Innu and Inuit nations, Algonquian nations, as well as the Mohawk nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Atikamekw, Cree, Inuktitut, and Innu-aimun are also among the many Indigenous languages spoken across Quebec as majority languages, and well before French and English.
