One far-reaching result of the residential school system is the loss of indigenous languages in Canada. A major cause of this loss was the removal of children from their families and language communities. reports that, having been removed from their families at an early age, children lost the opportunity to continue to develop their mother tongues. At the schools, only English or French were used. Furthermore, children were punished and abused for using their indigenous languages. Survivors of residential schools report priests and nuns punching, slapping, verbally abusing, and sticking pins in the tongues of very young children for speaking their mother tongues. In the face of this abuse, many children quickly lost the ability to speak their indigenous languages. A long-term result of residential schools is a significant reduction in the numbers of speakers of indigenous languages. According to the 2001 Canada Census, only 24% of people who identified themselves as aboriginal said they could communicate in an aboriginal language In addition, over the past 100 years, at least ten indigenous languages have become extinct . Although residential schools were not the sole cause of this loss of language, they played a significant role in the decline.
This loss of indigenous languages caused by residential schools affected traditional family and community relationships.
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