Spoken Cree, Level 1: West Coast of James Bay. 3rd ed.

John Steckley teaches in the Human Studies Program at Humber College in
Toronto. He is the author of Beyond Their Years: Five Native Women's
Stories.

This book is based on texts provided by speakers of the Swampy Cree
dialect from Kaschechewan, eight kilometres up the Albany River from the
west coast of James Bay. It is the third edition of an ambitious
life’s work for the author, a leading figure in the study of the Cree
language. The first edition, published in 1962 by the Anglican Book
Centre, was “originally undertaken with the needs of Anglican
missionary personnel in mind.” However, in all three versions the
author has consistently avoided the stilted, moralistic dialogues often
found in such teaching projects.

The second edition (1983) expanded greatly on the first, using texts
drawn from more informants and having broader pedagogical purposes. Some
changes were made in response to “the express desire of students
working in a typical campus setting and away from a Cree cultural
milieu”; other changes were aimed at making the work a solid base on
which to build much-needed more advanced textbooks (the proposed Level 2
and Level 3 texts). This third edition improves on those changes and,
for the reader/learner, results in a book that is easier to follow and
use, with fewer texts and units (18 rather than the earlier 26) and more
analysis and drills.

Two complaints. First, the tapes and the book do not match in dialect.
Having used the tapes in the previous version, I sometimes found it
confusing to have the words written in Moose Cree dialect and hear them
spoken in Swampy Cree dialect. Consistency of dialect is more important
an objective than the author’s stated desire to provide simultaneous
exposure to two dialects. Second, the author should include East Cree,
spoken in the east coast of James Bay as well as in more inland
communities in Quebec, in his presentation of “Major Cree Dialects.”