DANIELLE CYR is in love - with a dying language. Growing up in the Gaspé, she found herself trying to imitate the language of her Micmac playmates and created her own childhood Micmac "dictionary". Now she and her Micmac speaking partner, Emmanuel Metallic, are doing the real thing.

"The language is declining rapidly," says Cyr. In 1985, she estimated 95 per cent of people living on reserves spoke and understood the language. By 1995, that figure had dropped to 10 per cent.

Cyr expects to publish a 12,000-word dictionary this fall, including a CD-ROM version. Her eventual goal is to produce a 25,000-word edition with the corresponding Micmac hieroglyphs.

Illustration: Erik Mohr