'Each word is a spirit': Saskatoon play reinvents Shakespeare in English, French and Cree
"It’s an honour that I get to translate — and I’ve got to do it right," said Cree language keeper Randy Morin (BEd'07).
By JULIA PETERSON | SASKATOON STARPHOENIXWhether Randy Morin is teaching university-level Cree classes or just walking down the street in Saskatoon, he is listening to the languages spoken around him.
“This is what Canada is: a very multilingual, diverse country,” said Morin, a Cree language keeper from Big River First Nation. “You hear multiple languages. And I think having more languages present, in anything, is enriching.”
To keep the Cree language alive and vibrant in Saskatchewan, Morin says in an interview with the Saskatoon Star Phoenix “we need to keep putting it in different contexts, to bring it into the modernization of what’s going on.”
As part of his work to ensure his language’s future on this land, Morin is also looking to long-ago times in faraway places — specifically, Shakespeare’s England.
For the past three years, Morin has been one of the translators working on a new trilingual adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear.
“Shakespeare is loved by so many people around the world, and I thought that to give it an Indigenous flair would really elevate Indigenous languages. The Cree language needs to keep evolving in order to survive, and it gives the audience a richer experience, to know the diversity that exists in our languages and our cities.”
Read more at https://thestarphoenix.com