Quotations part 1

"all languages and dialects as equally valid from a linguistic point of view, but we also have to acknowledge that people have attitudes and expectations that arise from social power dynamics, and these attitudes – whether positive and negative – lead to linguistic bias."

''For many languages, the “standard” is whatever variety is spoken in the capital city, or by a dominant political class. For English and for other European languages, the variety that people categorize as “standard” tends to be the variety that white people with a certain amount of formal education use.''

''Eliminating Indigenous languages and cultures was the stated goal of the Canadian government. Well into the 20th century, police, church and government officials forcibly seized Indigenous children, removed them from their families, and sent them to residential schools. In these schools, children were separated from their siblings and cousins and forbidden to speak their families’ languages. They were starved, physically and sexually abused, and some of them murdered. Under these conditions, it’s not surprising that they stopped using thei family languages: using English or French was a matter of sheer survival.''