Muse Magazine, the museum industry magazine by the Canadian Museum Association, features an article about our 10th anniversary and the opening of our newest exhibit, Sign Languages of Canada.

See the article promoted on their Instagram here.

The Museum is the cover story and main feature of the current issue of Ogmios, the journal of the international Foundation for Endangered Languages. It's a wide-ranging interview about the Museum's history and goals set in a global context. Read the issue here.

"Museums of Language and the Display of Intangible Cultural Heritage"

is the first book ever to address the subject of language museums. It delves into the vital work being done by museums around the world to preserve and celebrate languages.

Our director Elaine Gold contributed a chapter about our unique travelling exhibits program, recognized internationally as innovative!

You can check it out here. 

New publication from the Museum

Today, August 9, is International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples!

Join us in commemorating the resilience of indigenous peoples. Our new 35-page booklet, Indigenous Languages in Canada, is now available online! It explores unique traits, writing systems, and the continued vitality of indigenous languages in Canada. 

This resource was written by board member and professor Will Oxford.

Download our new resource here

Viral Facebook Post

Facebook post about Cree goes viral and is seen by over 100,000 people!

Check it out here.

October 3rd, 2019, 3:30 pm at the Canadian Language Museum 

We are thrilled that renowned choreographer and dancer Carol Anderson will be returning to the Canadian Language Museum to present her work gravity/grace/fall. 

This piece combines movement with Carol’s original poetry to dramatic effect.

She is joined by celebrated dancers Terrill Maguire and Claudia Moore in this exciting evening of spoken word and dance. 

Gravity: the force of attraction between all masses in the universe, especially the attraction of the earth’s mass for bodies near its surface.

RSVP on Facebook

Meet the Curators evening at the Miles Nadal JCC

Thursday, September 5th, 2019, 7pm - 9pm

Come visit our Award Nominated exhibition Read Between the Signs at Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre in Toronto.

750 Spadina Ave, Toronto, ON M5S 2J2

On display from September 5th to October 1st 2019

We are very excited to announce that Elaine Gold, founder and director of the Canadian Language Museum, is the 2019 recipient of the Canadian Linguistic Association’s National Achievement Award!

“Dr. Gold has set a stellar example of what it means to be a “public scholar” in our discipline.  Her work on the CLM has reached non-academic audiences and it has engaged the general public around issues of language and linguistics in a manner that is accessible and informative."

National Achievement Award, Canadian Linguistic Association - 2019
The Canadian Linguistic Association is pleased to announce that the 2019 laureate of the National Achievement Award is Dr. Elaine Gold (U Toronto). The award will be presented on Sunday 2 June 2019 during the CLA's Annual Meeting at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. Dr Gold will give a plenary talk about her research.

Wladyslaw Cichocki
for the Award Selection Committee
Past President, Canadian Linguistic Association

Elaine Gold

"Dr. Elaine Gold has demonstrated exceptional effectiveness in communication and knowledge transfer about language and linguistics. Her work with the Canadian Language Museum has reached communities across Canada, both within and beyond the university context. Dr. Gold holds an MA in the History of Art and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Toronto. Until her retirement in 2017, she held teaching positions at Queen’s University and at the University of Toronto, where she served as Undergraduate Coordinator and Lecturer in Linguistics.

Her teaching covered a wide range of topics, and her scholarly output has contributed a distinctly Canadian focus in areas such as sociolinguistics, aspect and loan words in Yiddish, Indigenous Englishes, and Canadian English. She has made notable contributions to the now-flourishing research area of Canadian eh and to the study of aspect in Bungi, a Scots English/Cree creole that arose during the fur trade.

Dr. Gold’s most important contribution to linguistics in the public realm has been as founder, in 2011, and executive director of the Canadian Language Museum (CLM) (www.languagemuseum.ca). This unique institution has achieved a great deal for the outreach of linguistics into communities across Canada. In her work, Dr. Gold has been able to identify areas of research on languages in Canada that are of relevance to the wider public, to select researchers active in these areas, to oversee the development of itinerant museum exhibits on the relevant topics, and to manage their circulation across the country. Dr. Gold routinely recruits and mentors students from the University of Toronto’s Master of Museum Studies program, who

create and curate each exhibit as part of their graduating-year Exhibitions course. The CLM’s exhibits showcase and celebrate the diversity of Canadian English, of French in Canada as well as the many Indigenous and heritage languages spoken in Canada. The latest exhibit, Beyond Words: Dictionaries and Indigenous Languages, is occasioned by the United Nations’ proclamation of 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages.

The CLM travelling exhibits have had extensive geographic coverage, criss-crossing the country from Victoria to St. John’s. These exhibits have been displayed on nearly 100 occasions to date in diverse venues, including universities, schools, public libraries, community centres, government buildings, museums, historic sites, even hospitals. Museum exhibits have been featured at academic conferences and at large international events, for instance as part of the Aboriginal Pavilion at the 2015 Pan American Games and at the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education (Toronto, 2017).

In 2016, Dr. Gold’s vision and advocacy resulted in the establishment of a permanent home and exhibit space for the Museum at the Glendon Gallery (Glendon Campus of York University, Toronto). Beyond this permanent location, the CLM continues to function as a virtual museum with a substantive social media presence. In 2018, it launched its first digital (web-based) exhibit, Échos de la mosaïque/Messages from the Mosaic, and produced an original documentary, Two Row Wampum: Preserving Indigenous Languages in Toronto, that can be viewed on the CLM website.

In summary, Dr. Gold has set a stellar example of what it means to be a “public scholar” in our discipline. Her work on the CLM has reached non-academic audiences, and it has engaged the general public around issues of language and linguistics in a manner that is accessible and informative. The Canadian Linguistic Association is delighted to recognize this great service by awarding Dr. Gold our National Achievement Award for 2019."

Beyond Words: Dictionaries and Indigenous Languages

Opening May 7th 2019:

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS OPENING HAS BEEN CANCELLED

This exhibit highlights the complex relationship between Indigenous languages and dictionaries over several centuries, from word lists and dictionaries developed for exploration, colonization, conversion and assimilation purposes, to online language materials being developed by Indigenous communities to transmit the elders’ language knowledge to today’s youth.

Facebook Event Page

Opening April 4th 2019 at the Canadian Language Museum, Glendon Gallery!

Yiddish Spring at the Canadian Language Museum will be on display from April 4th until June 27th - watch for special events during these months!

Berlin-based composer Paul Brody has created "The Music of Yiddish Curses and Blessings": an exciting sound installation for the CLM based on the voice-melodies of eight Toronto Yiddish speakers. Well-known European and Canadian klezmer musicians are contributing responses to the piece. Brody discovered that as the Yiddish speakers, young and old, invoked the traditional Yiddish sayings, the emotion in their voices revealed the musicality of speaking Yiddish.

"I became fascinated by how my interviewee’s voice-melody often shifted from conversational to a melodic, almost singing voice, through the uttering of a blessing or a curse."

Drawing on his work with both contemporary Jewish music and radio documentaries, Brody has created a five-part suite for his sound installation. Well-known European and Canadian klezmer musicians are contributing responses to the piece.

For more information about Paul Brody’s work, go to:
http://paulbrody.net

On the walls will be the exhibit "Komets-Alef-O! Back to School at the Yiddish Kheyder" (the Yiddish classroom): an introduction to the Yiddish language, created by Toronto Yiddish doctoral student Miriam Borden.

Facebook Event Page

In collaboration with Ashkenaz Foundation

Presented by Canadian Language Museum in partnership with Ashkenaz Foundation, in association with UJA Committee For Yiddish, and with the generous financial support of ShaRna Foundation, Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies at York University, Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at University of Toronto, and UJA Kultura Collective.

Download Poster:

May 1st Exhibit Launch!

Join us as we celebrate three incredible projects: an exhibit of photographs, a web exhibit, and a video!

~ Tuesday, May 1st, 2018 ~
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

At the Canadian Language Museum
Glendon Gallery, Glendon College | 2275 Bayview Avenue | Toronto

~ Remarks at 7:00 pm ~

The evening will mark the launch of our new web exhibit ‘Messages from the Mosaic’ curated by graduating students in the Master of Museum Studies program at the University of Toronto

Facebook event page HERE

We will also be hosting the premiere of an original video, which explores maintaining Indigenous languages in Toronto.

The video project was created by students in Glendon’s "Histoire vivante" (Living History) course.

To top it all off, we will celebrate the opening of the photo exhibit Legacies: Our Heritage Through Our Grandmothers' Eyes in our gallery space, created by Glendon alumna Gina Valle. This exhibit consists of portraits of immigrant women from 24 different countries with their Canadian granddaughters’ reflections on their legacies. Their stories are in English, French and the language of their country of origin.

Kwe aweti

Until January 26, the Canadian Language Museum, located in the Glendon Gallery in Glendon Hall, presents "From Smoke to Cyber Signal" paintings and sculptures by Abenaki artist Carmen Hathaway.

An opening event will take place on Thursday the 11th of January from 3:30-5pm at the Gallery.

Accompanying this exhibit, Nadine St-Louis, indigenous entrepreneur of Mi'kmaq and Acadian heritage, will give a presentation on January the 26th, from 1:30-3pm in room YH A100. Nadine St-Louis is the founder and Executive Director of Sacred Fire Productions, which promotes indigenous art and artists through the productions of cultural projects and events that raise public awareness, break stereotypes and foster cross-cultural dialogue for the inclusion and advancement of Indigenous artists in urban centres.

This presentation will be followed by a closing event at the Gallery from 4-6pm.

These events are part of the project “Indigenous Art as a Sign of Resilience and as Means for Reconciliation”, which is made possible by funding received from the Office of the Provost through the Indigeneity in Teaching & Learning Fund.

Download our poster here!

Please join us for the opening of our newest exhibit:

Read Between the Signs: 150 Years of Language in Toronto
Toronto's diverse languages shape our city's streets. These languages are part of the landscape, visible in storefronts, building facades, and street signs. They can reflect, and sometimes even obscure, the communities that live and work in this city. In presenting a visual history of Toronto's languages, this exhibition makes use of historical and archival photos. 

When:
Wednesday May 3, 2017
6pm - 8pm

Where:
Canadian Language Museum
Glendon Gallery, Glendon College
2275 Bayview Avenue
Toronto M4N 3M6

This exhibit is part of the CONTACT Photography Festival

Find us on Facebook to RSVP!

The Canadian Language Museum launches its newest travelling exhibit, 'A Tapestry of Voices: Celebrating Canada's Languages' on March 31st 2016 from 5 to 7pm at New College in Toronto. Please join us in celebrating this latest addition to the museum.

INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION OF CANADA AND THE RELATED RESPONSIBILITIES OF POST-SECONDARY INSTITUTIONS

Glendon Hall, Glendon College, York University 2275 Bayview Avenue

February 9, 2016 from 10:00am to 5:30pm

The Organizing Committee: Maya Chacaby, Amos Key, Jr., Ian Martin and Jean Michel Montsion (who teach or have taught the following topics at Glendon: Anishinaabemowin, Cayuga, comparative indigenous language policy in the Americas, and Canadian and comparative language policy), and our two principal Glendon sponsoring organizations, the Master’s Program in Public and International Affairs (MPIA) and the Centre for Research on Language and Culture Contact (CRLCC) invite you to participate in this Colloquium.

The TRC report provides an historic policy window in which those concerned with indigenous policy and language policy have a chance to have their thoughts considered by decision-makers, both indigenous and non-indigenous. More specifically, the TRC report calls to action on Aboriginal rights and Aboriginal language rights, Aboriginal Languages Act, the appointment of an Aboriginal Languages Commissioner, and the role of post-secondary institutions in creating degree and diploma programs in Aboriginal languages.

This event will include participants from Western Canada, Ontario, Québec, Atlantic Canada, and the North to discuss the TRC recommendations as they pertain to language policy and the role of post-secondary education institutions. It will involve a welcoming event, a plenary panel discussion, some break out discussions, and a plenary workshop on next steps and commitments.

It will serve as a catalyst to (1) disseminate the TRC recommendations and language policy implications to the Glendon and York communities, to (2) mobilize support within the Toronto region, to (3) create collaborations with partners from across Canada, and to (4) shape a path forward through the formulation of a Declaration.

The Canadian Language Museum's exhibit 'Speaking the Inuit Way' will be on display during the colloquium.

The Canadian Language Museum launches its newest travelling exhibit, "Cree: The People's Language" on March 25th from 5 to 7pm at New College in Toronto. Please join us in celebrating this latest addition to the museum.

October 2014.  Work starts on the fourth travelling exhibit. It will be about the Cree language and will open in Spring 2015.   

On April 1st 2014, the Canadian Language Museum receives Charitable Registration status. You can support the museum by visiting our donation page.

The distinguished playwright, novelist and musician, Tomson Highway agrees to be an Honorary Patron for the Canadian Language Museum.

The Museum's first Annual General Meeting is held at the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia.

The exhibit 'Speaking the Inuit Way' is displayed at the Museum of Inuit Art, Toronto.

The exhibit 'Canadian English, Eh?' will be displayed at the Linguistic Society of America's Annual Meeting in Boston. Thank you to the LSA for generously donating the space for the exhibit.

The exhibit 'Canadian English, Eh?' is displayed at the University of Toronto St. George and Mississauga campuses.

The Canadian Language Museum joins the Canadian Museum Association.

The museum's inaugural exhibit 'Canadian English, Eh?' opens in Wilson Lounge, New College, University of Toronto

University of Toronto, Master of Museum Studies students Caylie Gnyra, Tamara Ivis and Heather Mawby begin work on the inaugural exhibit.

The Logo competition is launched.

The Canadian Language Museum launches languagemuseum.ca and museedeslangues.ca.