Cree Language

How do you pronounce the word “Cree”? What does it mean?

The name Cree, comes from “Kristineaux”, or “Kri” for short; a name given to Native Americans from the James Bay area by French fur traders.

“Cree” rhymes with the English word “see.” It’s a shortened form of the French word for the tribe, Kristeneaux, but it’s not clear where that word came from. It may have been a French mispronunciation of a Cree clan name (Kenistenoag) or a Cree mispronunciation of the French word for “Christian” (Chrétien.) In their own language the Crees call themselves Iyiniwok or Ininiwok, meaning “the people,” or Nehiyawok, “speakers of the Cree language.”