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National Indigenous Languages Day, Wâhkôhtowin, and Family Law
Today is National Indigenous Languages Day in Canada — a day to recognize, celebrate, and support Indigenous languages, and to remember that language is never just vocabulary. Language carries memory and language carries worldview. Language carries law and language carries relationship.[1]
That is part of why a word like wâhkôhtowin matters so much.
One description of wâhkôhtowin says it refers to the interconnected nature of relationships, communities, and natural systems. Its literal meaning is kinship, though it is also used in connection with Cree law.[2] Cree dictionary entries gathered in our research add further texture: relationship, the act of being related to each other, kinship beyond the immediate family, the state of being related to others.[3]
Wâhkôhtowin is a beautiful word to study, though as beautiful as it is, it is also demanding.
English can tempt us to think in categories: issue, claim, position, remedy, outcome.
Wâhkôhtowin is different, it gathers things back together.
It reminds us that a person is never only an individual; a person exists in relationship — to children, to parents, to siblings, to community, to land, to history, and to those not yet born.
That is where this word reaches directly into family law.
Family law deals with some of the most painful moments in a person’s life, yet even in separation, relationship does not simply vanish. A marriage may end. A household may divide. A parenting schedule may change. And yet, a family often remains connected in real and lasting ways.
Parents are still bound by love, duty, memory, and the long future of a child’s life.
Children do not experience themselves as half of one home and half of another. They experience themselves as whole human beings trying to live inside a changed family story.
That is why wâhkôhtowin feels so important here. It pushes against the false idea that family law is only about extracting rights from one another. It invites a deeper question: what does it mean to act inside family conflict in a way that still honours relationship?
Not every family can reconcile. Not every relationship can or should be preserved in the same form. Safety matters. Boundaries matter. Accountability matters. But even then, especially when children are involved, the law is often working inside a web of ongoing human connection. In that sense, kinship is not sentimental. It is practical. It is a reality the law has to reckon with.
This also connects directly to us and to how we practice. In its Statement of Commitment to Reconciliation, the Law Society of Saskatchewan says reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples is a priority, acknowledges the profession’s role in systemic discrimination, recognizes the continuing harmful impact of colonization, and commits itself to accountability, just laws, transparency, and accessible and impartial dispute resolution.[4] That is not peripheral to family law. It goes to the heart of how lawyers should think about power imbalance, access to justice, trauma, culture, and conflict resolution.
The Law Society’s plan of action also points to Truth and Reconciliation Commission Call to Action 27, which calls for cultural competency training for lawyers, including the history and legacy of residential schools, Treaties, Indigenous rights, Indigenous law, Aboriginal–Crown relations, and skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.[5] For those of us who work with families, that matters. Family law is not only about legal knowledge. It is also about how we see people, how we speak, what we notice, what we fail to notice, and whether our processes deepen, harm or make room for dignity.
There is another reason this reflection feels especially fitting on National Indigenous Languages Day. The Law Society did not only publish a statement. It worked with Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and translators to create written translations in Cree, Dëne, Northern Michif, Southern Michif, and Saulteaux, and it later made audio translations available as well.[6] That matters because reconciliation cannot live only in English. If language carries worldview, then making room for Indigenous languages is not ornamental. It is part of making room for Indigenous ways of understanding relationship, harm, responsibility, and repair.
One of the translation notes in the Law Society materials makes this especially striking. Darian Agecoutay explains that some English words do not have exact equivalents in nêhiyawêwin, so translation often has to work through interpretation rather than word-for-word substitution. He also notes that where English may focus on the action itself, nêhiyawêwin may focus more on the effect on people.[7] That insight alone could change the way many legal professionals write, negotiate, and resolve conflict.
It could change the questions we ask.
“What happened?” but also, “What did it do to people?”
“What is your position?” widens to “What relationships are being shaped here?”
“How do we end this dispute?” is transformed into “What kind of future are we building in the way we end it?”
When we honour Indigenous languages, we are acknowledging that these languages carry ways of knowing that Canada has too often ignored, suppressed, or tried to replace.[8]
So today, on National Indigenous Languages Day, wâhkôhtowin offers us a lens.
A lens for seeing family not only as a legal unit, but as an ongoing web of relationship. And a lens for seeing law not only as a system of rules, but as something that can either fracture human dignity or serve it.
In family law, we often meet people at the moment when relationship feels most broken. Wâhkôhtowin does not ask us to deny the pain of that. It asks something harder, and better: that even in conflict, we remember that people remain connected, that our actions ripple outward, and that the work of justice is not only to divide what has been fought over, but to respond wisely inside the human relationships that remain.
You may also wish to explore Indigenous language resources directly. The Online Cree Dictionary includes entries such as wâhkôhtowin. FirstVoices hosts community-led language archives and learning resources for many Indigenous languages. The Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages also maintains a resource library with language-learning and revitalization materials. For Saskatchewan-specific resources, the Office of the Treaty Commissioner has compiled an Indigenous language resources page.
For those who prefer audio or video, you might also enjoy this introductory Cree lesson on YouTube.
Sources
[1] Government of Canada, Important and commemorative days; Government of Canada, Joint statement on National Indigenous Languages Day (2026).
[2] Shana Dion, University of Alberta, Wâhkôhtowin: The Value of Relationships Amid Crisis.
[3] Cree Dictionary, Search results for wahkohtowin.
[4] Law Society of Saskatchewan, Statement of Commitment to Reconciliation.
[5] Law Society of Saskatchewan, Statement of Commitment to Reconciliation; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Calls to Action.
[6] Law Society of Saskatchewan, Statement of Commitment to Reconciliation; Law Society of Saskatchewan, Truth and Reconciliation.
[7] Law Society of Saskatchewan, Statement of Commitment to Reconciliation, Translation Notes – Cree.
[8] Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages, National Indigenous Languages Day: Bringing our Languages out of the Shadows and into the Light; Government of Canada, Joint statement on National Indigenous Languages Day (2024).
