Krzewienie polskiej kultury i języka jako powszechny ruch rewitalizacji i rozwoju

Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, is home to one of Canada’s oldest Polish communities. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Polish immigrants settled in most of the coal and steel towns of the region, joined by a smaller number of more recent arrivals. The centre of the region’s Polonia is the multicultural neighbourhood of Whitney Pier, home to St. Mary’s Polish Church and the Polish Village Hall, both of which are officially designated as heritage landmarks. Cape Breton’s Polonia, although a relatively small minority of the region’s population, maintains its identity and cohesiveness, despite the collapse of the coal and steel industries and the region’s overall declining population and high unemployment. This paper examines the processes of Polish-language loss and preservation over four generations. It also examines new learning methods and techniques presently being considered as part of a program of cultural and linguistic preservation and outreach, including learning models employed by other at-risk languages in Cape Breton, such as Scottish Gaelic. This paper explores how such efforts can contribute to a larger attempt to foster viable, locally driven community economic development (CED) initiatives. What suite of public policies and development priorities would aid and complement such work? This study will be of interest to Polish linguistic and cultural educators in other longstanding Polonia communities that are situated outside major metropolitan centres.