John L. Steckley (born March 13, 1949) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

scholar specializing in Native American studies and the

indigenous languages of the Americas Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large num ...

. Steckley has a PhD in Education from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

. He taught at

Humber College The Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning, commonly known as Humber College, is a public College of Applied Arts and Technology in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1967, Humber has two main campuses: the Humber North c ...

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, from 1983 until his retirement in June 2015. Steckley is one of the last known speakers of the

Wyandot language Wyandot (sometimes spelled Wandat) is the Iroquoian language traditionally spoken by the people known variously as Wyandot or Wyandotte, descended from the Tionontati. It is considered a sister to the Wendat language, spoken by descendants of th ...

, which he has studied for over thirty years. Today he works closely with the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma to aid in language revitalization alongside other Wyandot linguists such as Richard Zane Smith from the unrecognized Wyandot Nation of Kansas and Dr. Craig Kopris. He is also interested in place names as derived from indigenous languages, and aims to correct common misconceptions regarding their original derivations. Steckley has become a deeply respected figure amongst the Wyandot. On his adoption into the Wyandot tribe in 1999, he was named ''Tehaondechoren'' ("he who splits the country in two").Reist, Michael,
Member of the tribe: Meet Boltonite John Steckley, author and honorary member of the Huron Tribe
'', ''The Caledon Enterprise & Erin Advocate'', 28 January 2008 He was also given the name "Hechon" by descendants of the Huron in

Loretteville, Quebec City Loretteville is a former city in central Quebec, Canada. It was amalgamated into Quebec City on January 1, 2002. It is located within the borough of La Haute-Saint-Charles, and also contains the upmarket neighbourhood of Montchâtel. Its population ...

, while teaching them their own historical language. This was a name that had previously been given to

Jean de Brébeuf Jean de Brébeuf () (25 March 1593 16 March 1649) was a French Jesuit missionary who travelled to New France (Canada) in 1625. There he worked primarily with the Huron (Wyandot people) for the rest of his life, except for a few years in Franc ...

(1593–1649), one of the

North American Martyrs The Canadian Martyrs, also known as the North American Martyrs ( French: ''Saints martyrs canadiens'', Holy Canadian Martyrs), were eight Jesuit missionaries from Sainte-Marie among the Hurons. They were ritually tortured and killed on various da ...

, by his Huron and Wyandot followers. His 2007, ''Huron-English Dictionary'' was the first book of its type for over 250 years to be published. In 2007,

Laval University Laval means ''The Valley'' in old French and is the name of: People * House of Laval, a French noble family originating from the town of Laval, Mayenne * Laval (surname) Places Belgium * Laval, a village in the municipality of Sainte-Ode, Lux ...

received a federal grant of $1 million for development of its Huron-language teaching materials in collaboration with Steckley.J. Goddard
Scholar sole speaker of Huron language

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...

, 24 Dec 2007. Steckley has written widely on a variety of sociological and anthropological topics, including a recent book on gibbons.

Bibliography

* ''Full Circle: Canada's First Nations'' (2001) * ''Aboriginal Voices and the Politics of Representation in Canadian Introductory Sociology Textbooks'' (2003) * ''A Huron-English / English-Huron Dictionary, Listing Both Nouns and Verb Roots'' (2007) * ''Elements of Sociology: A Critical Canadian Introduction'' (with Guy Letts) (2008) * ''Beyond Their Years: Five Native Women's Stories'' (2011) * ''Learning from the Past: Five Cases of Aboriginal Justice'' (2013) * ''Foundations of Sociology'' (2014) *
The Eighteenth-Century Wyandot: A Clan-Based Study
' (2014) *
Gibbons: The Invisible Apes
' (2015)

References

External links

*Biography and book description for

' {{DEFAULTSORT:Steckley, John Living people Last known speakers of a Native American language Linguists of Iroquoian languages Linguists from Canada 20th-century linguists 21st-century linguists University of Toronto alumni Academic staff of Humber College 1949 births