Our Languages are Sacred: Finding Constitutional Space for Aboriginal Language Rights
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract This doctoral thesis argues that Aboriginal languages have a special constitutional status under section 35 (1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. It also sets out the broad lines of how constitutional recognition could be achieved. Using the framework established by the Van der Peet case (that in order for an Aboriginal activity to be recognized as an Aboriginal right it must be demonstrated as a practice, custom, and tradition at the time of contact with a “modest” ability to evolve”) this thesis argues that special constitutional status must be obtained due to four reasons. First, Aboriginal customary law forms the basis for Aboriginal language rights and a duty to transmit language to future generations. Using inter-customary and historical language practices between European and Aboriginal peoples this thesis also suggest that linguistic exchange created a unique body of law and formed the basis for relationships between diverse cultures and national groups. Secondly, this thesis traces the disruption Canada’s assimilation policies have had on Aboriginal languages, particular in educational policy and residential schools. It is argued this was a violation of Canada’s common law as inter-customary law and Aboriginal language rights was not extinguished or surrendered by law or treaty. This forms a large part of what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has called Canada’s “cultural genocide” – a practice successive federal governments have admitted as wrong and now commit to rectifying in policy and practice. Thirdly, Aboriginal languages as ongoing parts of Aboriginal customs, practices, and traditions today, this thesis cites Aboriginal people’s advocacy for language preservation and promotion through law; ongoing attempts to express constitutional recognition regionally; the unwritten principles of the Canada’s constitution; and government recognition of the centrality of Aboriginal language through constitutional negotiations, national studies and Royal Commissions. Fourthly, it is asserted that International law is a crucial arena in which Aboriginal language rights can, has, and should be asserted.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.013 | 0.019 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.018 | 0.044 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.016 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.010 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.013 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".