Why Jeremy Dutcher sings of survival and ‘resistance against colonization’

A language is more than just words. It is how you experience and define the world around you. It carries experiences, stories and a shared history. When a language stops being spoken — when it dies out — something is lost.

Canadian Indigenous musician Jeremy Dutcher is a Wolastoqiyik member of the Tobique First Nation, and he has made it his mission to preserve the language of his people: an endangered tongue called Wolastoqey.

His debut album, written entirely in Wolastoqey, won Canada’s Polaris Prize in 2018. Late last year, Dutcher returned with his sophomore album, Motewolonuwok.

In this session, Dutcher talks about why he decided to share songs in English for the first time on Motewolonuwok; about how he learned Wolastoqey; and about the joy that he finds in cultural exchange.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.