Revitalizing Oneida language with trailblazing program at Fanshawe College in London, Ont.

Brennan Ireland is learning to speak Oneida at Fanshawe College in London, Ont. (Bryan Bicknell / CTV News)

London, Ont. -

With National Day for Truth and Reconciliation this week, there's a growing desire to preserve, and in some cases, revitalize Indigenous culture.

A new course at Fanshawe College is helping to do just that.

The three-year program, Oneida Language Immersion, Culture and Teaching, is being taught by 70 -year-old Hubert Antone of London.

“The linguists that I’ve met, have mentioned the fact that Oneida is one of the hardest languages to learn in the whole world,” said Antone, who spoke the language as his mother tongue growing up.

Antone said there are fewer than 20 people left in the Oneida of the Thames community who can communicate in the language. One of the reasons the language is dying out, he said, is that it was stripped away over many generations of Indigenous children attending residential schools.

“Me and my brother, we used to play outside in the school yard. That’s the only place we could speak our language. Otherwise we would get punished by the system. If you speak you’d get pulled into the classroom. We’d get strapping, or whatever.”

It’s the first time this course is being offered anywhere in Ontario.

“You basically gotta live it,” said student Brennan Ireland. He’s one 17 people in the first-year class, which is made up of Indigenous students.

“If you want to learn it quick you've gotta immerse yourself. And it’s not just, you learn it for a few hours and then you’re done with it. You gotta keep going. I gotta learn this stuff on my own time, and introduce it to my life.”

Ireland, whose father is from Oneida of the Thames, said he hopes to return to his Oneida roots when he graduates and teach the language himself, doing his part to revitalize the culture he loves.

“We’re in a time of healing, and healing from historical trauma. So for us to heal the young people have to come up and start learning the language, start learning our culture.”